Half-Brother to Pursue Wallenberg Leads

After a rare glimpse behind the walls of a Soviet prison, Raoul Wallenberg’s half-brother said Wednesday he is more convinced than ever that the Swedish diplomat credited with saving tens of thousands of lives during World War II survived longer than Soviet authorities have admitted.

Guy von Dardel, who has spent much of the last 44 years searching for Wallenberg, termed his 10-day trip to the Soviet Union “very exciting” and said he plans to return to pursue several leads.

“I loved my brother very much. And I think it would be one of the great injustices if we left this alone, without trying to find out what happened,” he said in an interview hours before leaving Moscow to return to Sweden.

Von Dardel said he was pleased by new evidence he gathered during two meetings with KGB officials last week and a trip this week to Vladimir Prison, 75 miles from Moscow. Scores of prisoners there have said they saw Wallenberg after 1947, when the Kremlin has said he died in a Moscow jail cell.

Soviet authorities made the surprise offer to allow Von Dardel to visit the prison during a meeting five days ago. Von Dardel extended his planned stay in Moscow and went into the prison Monday accompanied by Sonja Sonnenfeld, the chairman of the Raoul Wallenberg Assn., formed to help investigate Wallenberg’s fate.

“We were able to look at some prison files and talk to officials,” Von Dardel said. “We were not able to confirm the sightings we had there, and thus the visit was not conclusive. But we never expected that.

“Nevertheless it points the way, and it’s very exciting for me,” he said. He declined to elaborate further on the new evidence he collected.

Wallenberg is still revered by many for having saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews in Nazi-occupied Budapest during World War II--the estimates run from 20,000 to 100,000--by helping to place them in safehouses and by distributing a special Swedish document that placed its holder under the protection of the Swedish government.

He disappeared on Jan. 17, 1945, after going to meet the military commander of the Red Army troops who had occupied Budapest behind the fleeing Nazi soldiers.

The Red Army confiscated Wallenberg’s car and imprisoned both him and his driver. The Swedish diplomat is said to have told fellow inmates he was accused of being a spy.

The Soviet Union denied any knowledge of Wallenberg’s whereabouts until 1957, when it said he had died a decade earlier in Moscow’s Lubyanka Prison of an apparent heart attack. The Kremlin and the KGB security police have both apologized for his arrest and subsequent death.

But dozens of former prisoners have reported seeing Wallenberg after 1947, including a number in Vladimir Prison.

Von Dardel, noting that new documents relating to Wallenberg’s arrest have turned up in recent weeks, has suggested that Wallenberg’s prison records may be similarly lost.

He also has said that Soviet authorities privately noted they would be willing to believe that Wallenberg lived beyond 1947--and even that he is alive today--if offered convincing proof.

Von Dardel said he believes his brother was held from 1950 until as recently as 1980 in a special section of Vladimir Prison reserved for foreigners.

Then, he said, the special section was turned into a new wing of the prison hospital, and inmates held there were dispersed to other locations.

“We need to return to the prison with a bigger delegation, and one with more expertise in examining historical records,” he said. “They have told us we can come again.”

He said his first-ever meetings with Soviet authorities during his stay here “have made me more convinced than ever that Raoul was alive after 1947,” despite official denials.

“Beyond that, I wouldn’t comment,” he continued when asked if he believes Wallenberg is alive today, as the Raoul Wallenberg Assn. contends.