A memorial plaque dedicated to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved tens of thousands of Jews in Hungary in 1944-45, was unveiled in Mukacheve (Munkács), in Ukraine’s Transcarpathian region February 16, 2013.

Addressing the ceremony, Zsolt Németh, Hungarian Parliamentary State Secretary of Foreign Affairs, said that the inauguration ceremony was part of a series of events worldwide, marking Wallenberg’s birth centenary. The Hungarian State Secretary emphasized the unparalleled courage of Wallenberg, who had always found new ways to rescue persecuted people. 
Referring to the diplomat’s fate, Zsolt Németh noted that Wallenberg had saved people from the clutches of Nazism and then fell victim to another dictatorial rule, namely Soviet communism. He pointed out that the memorial plaque, a work by Ukrainian sculptor Mikhailo Gorodko, expressed the identical nature of Nazism and communism.

The Hungarian State Secretary recalled the tragedy of 100,000 Jews who were deported from Transcarpathia, which was then part of Hungary. He underlined that this tragedy had inflicted an irreparable damage on the city of Mukacheve and its vicinity, putting a violent end to the centuries-old unique culture of the Transcarpathian region.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)