media reported early Tuesday August 27.
Swedish diplomat Per Anger, an attaché at Sweden’s embassy in Budapest in 1944, died at the age of 89, Hungarian state-run radio and the Hungarian News Agency MTI said, citing sources in Sweden’s capital Stockholm.
Anger began serving as attaché in the Hungarian capital in 1942 and closely worked with Wallenberg who arrived in July 1944, to save Hungarian Jews by issuing temporary Swedish passports.
At least 20,000 Jews are believed to have been saved this way before Wallenberg was arrested by the Soviets in January 1945 when he soon disappeared. Christian and other international organizations tried unsuccessfully to demand his release.
HONORARY CITIZENSHIP
On September 18, 2000, Israel granted Anger honorary citizenship for his role in the major humanitarian action.
Earlier, in 1995, former Hungarian President Arpad Goncz presented Anger with the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary for his role in saving Jews during World War II.
At least 600-thousand Hungarian jews were killed during World War Two. News about Anger’s death came as the the Budapest Prosecutor’s Office accused publisher Gede Brothers Bt. of "incitement to hatred" by publishing anti-Semitic books.
PRISON TERMS
Gede Brothers Bt. officials could face a 3 year prison term for allegedly publishing several books reflecting the idea’s of the Hungarian wartime fascists, who were known as the Arrow Cross.
Hungary was for the most part of the Second World War a close ally of Nazi Germany, a period that was largely ignored under Communism. However after the collapse of the Communist system churches and the jewish community began a process of dialogue and reconciliation.
