Csak az érdekesség kedvéért feltettem egy könyvborítót ennek az emlékműnek a képével. A könyv a múlt hónapban jelent meg Angliában, s mint a címéből látszik, a világban jelenleg álló Wallenberg-szobrokról szól. Szerzője egy svéd művészettörténész hölgy, maga a könyv pedig egy két éve Berlinben megvédett doktori disszertáció, szép képekkel. Eszerint egyébként jelenleg világszerte 5 kontinens 12 országában összesen 31 Wallenberg-emlékmű létezik. Közülük 8 az Egyesült Államokban, 5 Svédországban, de nekünk sem kell szégyenkeznünk a magunk 3 emlékművével, ráadásul a felállításuk időrendjében Budapestté az 1., a 9. (ez, amiről a műlap szól) és a 19. helyzés. Maga a köny, akit érdekel: Tanja Schult: A Hero's Many Faces. Raoul Wallenberg in Contemporary Monuments. Houndmills--New York, 2009, Palgrave Macmillan, 425 p. /The Holocaust and its Contexts, 2./

1984. januárban jelent meg az első írásom a Históriában a régi Wallenberg-emlékmű történetéről, s ezután kérte fel Nicolas Salgo budapesti amerikai nagykövet Varga Imrét erre az új szoborra, melyet aztán föl is állítottak az amerikai követség kertjében. Köztérre néhány héttel Kádár János svédországi látogatása előtt került a budapesti amerikai és svéd nagykövet "összeesküvésének" következtében, de avatása igen alacsony protokollal, szinte titokban történt meg 1987. április 9-én. A hozzátöltött képek aláírásából lemaradt a szobor felirta: "Donec eris felix, multos numerabis amicos, / Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris" (Sorsod amíg kedvez, szám nélküli lesz a barátod, / ámde magadra maradsz, hogyha eged beborul) -- Ovidius: Siralmak, I. 9. 5., Muraközy Gyula fordítása.

Angol leírás, sztori

My first study about the history of the “old” Wallenberg memorial https://www.kozterkep.hu/~/11785/Raoul_Wallenberg_emlekmu_Budapest_1999.html was published in a historical journal called História in early 1984. In the following years, this article became a determining shaper of Wallenberg’s memory in Hungary.
Actually it happened, that in those years, between 1983 and 1986 the Hungarian-born Nicolas Salgo was the Ambassador of the United States in Hungary. He had read my study about the world’s first Wallenberg memorial’s rugged fate, and on one occasion he asked the famous Hungarian sculptor Imre Varga if he had had the courage to make a new Wallenberg memorial. Because Mr Salgo knew very well, that in those times such an activity needed first of all courage.
Imre Varga was Pátzay’s student at college in the 1950s, and he had known about the story of the first Wallenberg memorial. Therefore, he wanted to erect a relic not only for Wallenberg, but also for his former master’s work. He chiselled the contour of the former monument onto the surface of a huge Swedish granite sheet, then broke the sheet into two parts vertically. On the one hand by doing so he marked the destruction of the old monument symbolically, on the other hand he created the space for his new bronze Wallenberg statue. This sculpture, however, doesn’t show a young man, but an old one, wearing the typical clothes of Soviet labour camps, drugget cloak and clogs. Next to the silhouette of Pátzay’s statue Ovid’s lines were engraved in Latin: Donec eris felix multos numerabis amicos, / Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris. In English translation: „As long as you are fortunate, you will have many friends; if the weather has become cloudy, you will be alone.”
The statue was erected in the garden of the U.S. Embassy in Budapest in 1985. So it wasn’t placed in a Hungarian public square, but on American territory. Its translocation to a Hungarian public square needed a real diplomatic conspiracy. Anyway, the following story could well illustrate the atmosphere of the late Kádár-era, the ambiguity of the so called goulash communism.
The Swedish government invited János Kádár to an official visit to Sweden in 1986. In one of the preparatory discussions Kádár asked the Swedish ambassador in Budapest, what kind of questions would be expected during the press conferences? The ambassador, Anders Rognar Dromberg had known about the sculpture standing in the garden of the American embassy, and he had agreed with his American colleague beforehand, so he answered there would certainly be a question about whether there was a monument to Wallenberg in Hungary. A few weeks later the Ambassador of the United States, who was departing his place, paid his last visit at Kádár’s and offered the Wallenberg memorial as a gift for the Hungarian people. According to Mr Salgo memories Kádár accepted the gift “reluctantly”, and told the American delegate with a „sourish smile” that he would have to explain it, and apologize to the Soviet comrades again.
The further events were typified by this „reluctance” and ambiguity of Wallenberg’s political judgement. The statue of Wallenberg wasn’t set up in his former operational area, but far away from the city centre in an outer district. The newspapers hadn’t been allowed to publish the day of the inauguration before it took place, and the monument was inaugurated on a very low level of the political protocol. The inauguration took place almost in secret – in the presence of a few dozen people – exactly one week before the Kádár’s visit to Stockholm, in April 1987.