Sweden 'did little' to save Wallenberg from Soviets

A Swedish commission criticised the government yesterday for its handling of the 1945 disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg, the diplomat who helped thousands of Jews escape Nazi-occupied Hungary.

Wallenberg, a Swede, was captured by Soviet troops in Budapest at the end of the Second World War. The Swedish Foreign Ministry did little about his disappearance, the commission said, and that was indefensible.

Citing documents found in the government archives, the report said Foreign Ministry officials assumed Wallenberg was killed after his arrest by Soviet troops.

Wallenberg is credited with saving 20,000 Hungarian Jews by giving them Swedish passports and securing diplomatic protection for entire neighbourhoods in Budapest.

He disappeared after being accused of spying. Moscow said Wallenberg died of a heart attack in 1947 in Soviet custody. In 2001, Russia said he was imprisoned for political reasons until he died, but did not say how, where or when.

Some researchers have said Wallenberg was imprisoned under a false name. Former gulag prisoners claimed to have seen him in camps in the Eighties.

The commission was appointed in 2001 to examine the government's efforts.