Final survivors add Wallenberg testimony

“I realize how close I could have come to not existing; I’m here because of the grace of one man’s kindness and efforts.”

Robert Koppel participated in the inaugural dinner of the Wallenberg Heritage Foundation at the Young Israel of Jamaica Estates, where he recited a chapter of tehillim.

The only child of two Holocaust survivors, Koppel told The Jewish Star that he shoulders the “responsibility to maintain and ensure that the traditions of his family go on.” He and his wife Laurie have three children, graduates of local yeshivot, and are members of the Young Israel of Woodmere.

Koppel’s mother, Vera, who also attended the dinner, discussed her need to bear witness to history and convey the story of Raoul Wallenberg, a man who risked his life to save more than 100,000 Jews from the Nazis in Hungary during World War II.

Wallenberg was born in 1912 into a wealthy Swedish banking family. He pursued interests in architecture and business, studying in the United States and securing a job in banking in Haifa before the war. He became a business partner to a Hungarian Jewish businessman and was recruited by the U.S. to serve in the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Budapest.

As the Nazis accelerated their war against the Jews there, he created protective passes (Schutzpass) and rented and designated buildings as Swedish territories protected by diplomatic immunity, hanging huge Swedish flags out front. He was arrested by the conquering Soviet forces and except for some claims by prisoners in Russia, was never seen again. The Russians later claimed that he died in prison in 1947.

Koppel said he tells the story every year at his Seder. “Bchol dor vador (in every generation they arise to destroy us and Hashem saves us) and we can’t forget. I tell my kids all the time the famous quote of Edmund Burke, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’.” Koppel added that his father, who passed away 26 years ago, survived Auschwitz and was liberated after a death march to Theresienstadt.