00Enrolled SCR 18                                                                                                         
01 Establishing August 4, 2012, as Raoul Wallenberg Remembrance Day.                                                       
02                                       _______________                                                                   
03 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA:                                                             
04      WHEREAS Raoul Wallenberg was born in Sweden on August 4, 1912, to Swedish                                        
05 Christian parents; and                                                                                                  
06      WHEREAS, in 1935, Raoul Wallenberg graduated from the University of Michigan                                     
07 in Ann Arbor, completing a five-year program in architectural design in three years; and                                
08      WHEREAS Raoul Wallenberg returned to Sweden, where he began a career as a                                        
09 businessman and later became a Swedish diplomat; and                                                                    
10      WHEREAS, in 1944, during World War II, the United States was at war with and did                                 
11 not have diplomatic relations with Hungary; and                                                                         
12      WHEREAS United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull requested the cooperation                                  
13 of Sweden, a neutral nation, in protecting the lives of 750,000 Hungarian Jews facing                                   
14 extermination at the hands of the Nazis; and                                                                            
15      WHEREAS, at the request of the United States, Raoul Wallenberg, in his official                                  
16 capacity as a Swedish diplomat, agreed to act in Hungary to protect Jews and victims of the                             
17 Nazis; and                                                                                                              

01      WHEREAS, with extraordinary courage and total disregard for the constant danger to                               
02 himself, Raoul Wallenberg, as a young diplomat, outdueled Nazi Lieutenant Colonel Adolf                                 
03 Eichmann in Budapest, Hungary, and, from July through December 1944, Wallenberg                                         
04 miraculously saved more than 100,000 innocent men, women, and children from the Nazi                                    
05 death camps; and                                                                                                        
06      WHEREAS, when the Nazi regime fell and the Soviets liberated Budapest, Raoul                                     
07 Wallenberg then endured tragic imprisonment and death in a Soviet Gulag under Communist                                 
08 dictator Josef Stalin's directives and in violation of Wallenberg's diplomatic immunity and                             
09 international law; and                                                                                                  
10      WHEREAS the late United States Congressman Tom Lantos, who was rescued by                                        
11 Wallenberg in Budapest, served for several years as economic adviser and chief of staff to                              
12 former Alaska Congressman Mike Gravel; and                                                                              
13      WHEREAS history has revealed that heroic acts of salvation were rare during the                                  
14 massacre of millions of innocent human beings during World War II; and                                                  
15      WHEREAS, in 1981, Congress proclaimed Raoul Wallenberg an honorary citizen of                                    
16 the United States, and President Ronald Reagan signed and awarded the honor; and                                        
17      WHEREAS the year 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of Raoul Wallenberg's birth;                                   
18      BE IT RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature proclaims August 4, 2012, to be                                 
19 Raoul Wallenberg Remembrance Day in honor of the courage of Raoul Wallenberg, whose                                     
20 life demonstrated moral courage and love in the face of incomprehensible evil and showed                                
21 that one person can make a difference.