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US Congress Gives Gold Medal to Swedish Hero
The Local ^

Posted on 07/18/2014 4:11:56 PM PDT by nickcarraway

Raoul Wallenberg, famous for rescuing thousands of Jews during WWII - and President Obama's personal hero - will be posthumously presented with a Congressional Gold Medal on Wednesday.

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"It's absolutely fantastic that the congress has chosen to recognize Wallenberg in this way," Lena Posner-Korosi, President of the Council of Sweden's Jewish communities, told The Local on Wednesday. The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian award bestowed by the US Congress - an honour Posner-Korosi said Raoul Wallenberg certainly deserved.

"He had truly incredible courage. He pulled people off of trains on their way to Auschwitz. It's wonderful that the values he stood for are actually recognized."

Seventy years have passed since Wallenberg's first trip to Budapest as Sweden's diplomatic representative. During six months in Nazi-occupied Hungary, he was able to save the lives of tens of thousands of Jews by granting them Swedish passports.

In pictures: What do Swedes know about Raoul Wallenberg?

After being arrested by Soviet forces in Hungary on January 17th 1945, Wallenberg was never seen or heard from again. His relatives have made appeals to Obama and Vladimir Putin to learn Wallenberg's fate, to no avail.

Ronald Reagan made Wallenberg an "honorary citizen of the US" in 1981, and his legacy has lived on. Posner-Korosi noted that the US was one of the first countries to recognize the good that the Swede had done for the world - and said his example is particularly relevant today.

"Especially now, with how the world looks today, and the way people treat minorities...Roma, Jews, and others... it's actually unfathomable that more hasn't changed 70 years on," Posner-Korosi said.

"Of course Wallenberg absolutely deserves to be honoured in this way. But we also hope that it will be a reminder of how a single person can and should treat others."

Raoul Wallenberg. Photo: Pressensbild/TT The ceremony takes place in Washington at 3pm, Eastern Time, 9pm Swedish time. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt will participate in the ceremony, along with Speaker of the Riksdag Per Westerberg.

Last year the Swedish Academy made August 27th Raoul Wallenberg Day to commemorate his legacy each year.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 1981; 2011; 201105; 20130827; august27; binladen; binladen1981; binladenraid; brezhnev; leonidbrezhnev; lutherans; obl; sweden; swedes; wallenberg
Wallenberg is Obama's personal hero? Did anyone ever hear that before?
1 posted on 07/18/2014 4:11:56 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway
Wallenberg, a guy who saved the lives of Jews????

Nope, never heard Obama mention him.

2 posted on 07/18/2014 4:13:29 PM PDT by mware
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To: nickcarraway

What is this the Swedish hour? About 6 posts about Sweden or Swedes in a few minutes.


3 posted on 07/18/2014 4:23:27 PM PDT by DManA
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To: nickcarraway

$$$=taqiyya


4 posted on 07/18/2014 4:24:35 PM PDT by onedoug
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To: nickcarraway

It was the chapter that got scrapped, the one right after bragging about Cocaine and Pot.


5 posted on 07/18/2014 4:25:48 PM PDT by MaxMax (Pay Attention and you'll be pissed off too! FIRE BOEHNER, NOW!)
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To: nickcarraway

Obama: “Wallenberg? Loved him in Boogie Nights.”


6 posted on 07/18/2014 4:26:28 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
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To: mware

Article from 2013 says the family ‘asked Obama for help’ in finding out what happened to him. (Obama on way to St. Petersburg with a stop in Stockholm). If he was Barry’s “personal hero”, I wouldn’t think that the Wallenberg Family would have had to ask “the One”?


7 posted on 07/18/2014 4:29:52 PM PDT by machogirl (First they came for my tagline)
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To: nickcarraway

Go Blue! Wallenberg was a Michigan alumnus.


8 posted on 07/18/2014 4:29:54 PM PDT by ConservativeTeen (Proud Right Wing Extremist)
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To: ConservativeTeen

It’s possible that Wallenberg survived until the 1960s or even later, in a Soviet camp.

The problem was, the Soviets didn’t want to admit it, and it was likely Brezhnev’s political detachment of the Red Army that seized him in 1945 (hence the need to keep that quiet).

If so, he languished in the Gulag because the US and the West didn’t want to upset the applecart of good feelings with the Russians over a single man.


9 posted on 07/18/2014 4:41:37 PM PDT by CondorFlight (I)
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To: CondorFlight

Apparently Barack, in May, 2011, wrote a letter to Morris Wolff, author of, “Whatever Happened to Raoul Wallenberg”? (re: Wolff’s quest to free Wallenberg). Barack’s letter mentioned Barack’s strategy to take out Bin Laden.

“....thanks to a May 10, 2011, letter to Wolff from President Obama stating, “Morris Wolff in 1989 went to Israel and enlisted the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, in a daring raid to rescue Raoul Wallenberg. On April 30, 2011, we copied that strategy and took out Osama Bin Laden. The use of a carefully planned and wisely implemented strategy is a hallmark of Morris Wolff’s legal work in the U.S. Federal Court in achieving a great victory for his client, a hero whom we all celebrate…..”

First I had heard that Barry copied a “strategy” from Mossad to ‘take out Bin Laden’. I thought Barry did that all by himself.

http://chestnuthilllocal.com/blog/2011/07/01/ex-hiller-fights-shameful-u-s-soviet-coverup-hero-victimized-by-gov%E2%80%99t-officials-at-highest-level/


10 posted on 07/18/2014 5:08:58 PM PDT by machogirl (First they came for my tagline)
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To: nickcarraway

Who’s next, Galileo? Congress sure does move slow.


11 posted on 07/18/2014 9:21:20 PM PDT by Vermont Lt (If you want to keep your dignity, you can keep it. Period........ Just kidding, you can't keep it.)
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To: mware

I don’t buy the “personal hero propaganda”.

Jews were not high on the list of Obama’s mentors.

His actions also betray him.

So I call BS...


12 posted on 07/18/2014 9:29:13 PM PDT by Cold Heat (Have you reached your breaking point yet? If not now....then when?)
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