By Susanne Berger
We have received news that Berndt Fredriksson, the former head of the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s Department of Secrecy has been appointed by the Swedish Foreign Ministry to assist in the review of the documentation that remains currently classified regarding the Raoul Wallenberg case, so that it can now be released, in response to our research application. Mr. Fredriksson indicated that previous statements made by Swedish officials that essentially no records remain classified was a “misunderstanding”. According to Mr. Fredriksson’s estimate, altogether about one shelf-meter (hyllmeter) of documents fall into this category. The material apparently encompasses documentation from the Swedish-Russian Working Group of the 1990s and other deposits.
It is impossible to say how significant the documentation will turn out to be for the ongoing inquiry, but it certainly constitutes an interesting and important development. Just as important as the release of these papers will be for Raoul Wallenberg’s family and researchers to obtain access to the various collections we have requested to review within the archive of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We did so in a separate letter sent to Foreign Minister Wallström at the end of March. Our hope now is that other Swedish archives will follow suit and release additional records related to the Wallenberg case from their holdings.