7 March 2022 (02-2022)
Our colleague Susanne Berger (Washington and Hanover), initiator and organiser of the Raoul Wallenberg Research Initiative, has sent us the current newsletter of the RWI-70 initiative and her personal commentary on Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine (Editor)
Dear friends and colleagues,
The events of the last two weeks have undoubtedly shaken us all to the core. Probably none of us has slept well for days.
War is hell: the apocalyptic images of destruction with millions of people fleeing for their lives bring back memories of the violence and crimes we had hoped we would never see again in Europe. Like most people, I feel a mixture of shock, helplessness, pain, outrage and plain fear. As I am not in a position to comment in detail on the current crisis in Ukraine here at RWI-70, I will make a separate statement on the conflict that expresses my personal opinion only.
I am sure we have all been thinking in recent days of other recent mass atrocities, such as the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, where members of the ethnic Hutu majority slaughtered 800,000 people, most of whom belonged to the Tutsi minority; the mass executions of 8.000 Muslim boys and men in Srebrenica (Bosnia) in 1995; as well as the current efforts of the Chinese government to exterminate the Uighur minority in the cruelest way; and World War II, the Babyn Yar massacre, when German Nazi troops executed nearly 34,000 Ukrainian Jews in two days, and Katyn, where the Soviet authorities ordered the execution of nearly 22,000 Polish officers. And of course I am also thinking of Hungary, where the country’s Jewish population was subjected to similar barbarity in 1944. Within just six months, 500,000 of the country’s Jewish citizens were deported and murdered. Desperate appeals to bomb the railway lines to Auschwitz fell on deaf ears.
The horror cannot be described in words. And yet, in this dark hour, when there seemed to be no hope, a young Swedish businessman left his comfortable life in Stockholm behind to plunge straight into battle. Wallenberg must have felt desperate, discouraged and frightened countless times, and yet he followed an almost reflexive impulse to come to the aid of his fellow human beings. With his humanistic spirit, unwavering determination and extraordinary courage – both physical and moral – Wallenberg came to symbolise what is best in us. Above all, he demonstrated the power of hope and the possibility that one person really can make a difference.
Professor Irwin Cotler, former Canadian Minister of Justice and International Director of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR) in Montreal, summarised these universal lessons from the Holocaust and Wallenberg’s mission in a memorable editorial last January, in which he emphasised that Wallenberg’s actions laid the foundation for modern international human rights and humanitarian law. You will find his text at the end of the circular. It should both comfort and inspire you.
Below I have summarised some points that cover the spectrum from helping the Ukrainian civilian population to seeking accountability and justice for the crimes committed. At the same time, we should not lose sight of the other serious human rights issues in the world. Other autocrats will try to use the focus on Ukraine to crack down even harder on internal dissidents and prop up their regimes. Democratic values and the humanist spirit are indestructible, but we are paying a very, very high price for them. We should never take them for granted again.
In the coming days, I will report on various research findings regarding Sweden.
I will conclude with the international hymn to mutual love and understanding from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, „All Men Become Brothers…“, which is also the official anthem of a united and democratic Europe.
For today, I wish us all only one thing – peace.
Susanne Berger
Coordinator
RWI-70
www.rwi-70.de
6045 25th Rd N
Arlington, VA 22207 USA
E-mail: susanne.berger@rwi-70.de
Phone: + 1 571 594 1701
