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Russia refuses to divulge fate of diplomat who saved Jews during Holocaust

Russia knows the truth about Raoul Wallenberg’s fate, but has turned down an appeal by his family to reveal the full story.

Raoul Wallenberg’s relatives said they will appeal a Russian court’s verdict to turn down their lawsuit asking the KGB’s main successor agency to provide full information about the Swedish diplomat who disappeared after helping at least 20,000 Hungarian Jews escape the Holocaust.

Wallenberg’s niece, Marie Dupuy, said Monday’s ruling “only strengthens our family’s resolve.”

She added in a statement Tuesday, “We will appeal this verdict, which violates not only our rights but also those of my uncle and millions of other victims of repression and their families in Russia today.”

Wallenberg vanished after being arrested by the Red Army in 1945. The Soviets initially denied he was in their custody, but later said he died in prison in 1947. The time and circumstances of his death have remained unclear.

The New York Times in August 2016 ran a full report documenting the accounts and Wallenberg’s supposed whereabouts and concluded that he was shot by the Soviets in 1947.

Thousands of Jews escaped deportation to Auschwitz after Wallenberg gave them Swedish protective passes. His story became legendary after 1945.

Wallenberg’s family has spent decades trying to establish what actually happened to him.

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In November 2016, he was formally pronounced dead by Sweden’s tax authority, 71 years after he disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Wallenberg, recognized by Israel in 1963 as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” – a title bestowed upon gentiles who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, issued Swedish passports and protective letters to Jews who were otherwise doomed to deportation to the gas chambers in Auschwitz.

“During the dark days of horror and death, Wallenberg manifested himself as an angel of hope, issuing in three months thousands of protective letters to persecuted Jews. When Adolf Eichmann organized the death marches of thousands of Jews from Budapest to the Austrian border, Wallenberg pursued the convoys in his car and managed to release hundreds of Jews to whom protective letters were granted,” wrote Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial.

By: AP and world Israel News Staff