Mystery remains over death of ‘Swedish Schindler’ who saved thousands of Jews from Holocaust and was then held by Soviet Union 
 
 The Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Jews during the second world war, has finally been declared dead by his homeland, 71 years after disappearing into the hands of the Soviet Union. 
 
 The announcement brings only a partial closure to one of the greatest mysteries of the cold war – the fate of a man nicknamed the Swedish Schindler – as his body was never returned to his family. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nina Lagergren, half-sister of Raoul Wallenberg, with a picture of him. Photograph: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty 
 
 As Sweden’s special envoy in Budapest during the war, Wallenberg’s actions allowed thousands of Jews to flee Nazi-occupied Hungary. Months before the war ended, the Soviets invaded Budapest and summoned the Swede to their headquarters in January 1945. 
 
 He disappeared, and his fate became a sensitive issue between the west and the Soviet Union. 
 
 “The official date of his death is 31 July 1952,” said Pia Gustafsson, an official from Sweden’s tax authority, which registers birth and deaths. “This date is purely formal. Legally, we must choose a date at least five years after his disappearance and there were signs of life until the end of July 1947.” 
 
 The decision came after a representative of Wallenberg’s family asked for a death certificate from Sweden, which published search notices for him and received no new information on his whereabouts. 
 
 A statement sent to AFP in 2015 by the family said Wallenberg’s “declaration of death is a way to deal with the trauma we lived through, to bring one phase to closure and move on”. 
 
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 Wallenberg was sent by neutral Sweden to Hungary in 1944 and by early 1945 he had issued Swedish papers to thousands of Jews, allowing them to flee the country and likely death. The 32-year-old also acquired buildings – designated as Swedish territory – to house as many Jews as possible and provide them with extraterritorial status. 
 
 In 1957, the Soviet Union released a document saying Wallenberg had been jailed in Lubyanka prison, the notorious building where the KGB security services were headquartered, and that he died of heart failure on 17 July 1947. But his family refused to accept that version of events and for decades tried to establish what happened to him. 
 
 Wallenberg was showered with honours after his presumed death, including the Congressional gold medal by the US Congress and his designation by Israel as one of the “righteous among the nations” – individuals whose courage saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust. 

 Image copyright AFP Image caption Wallenberg disappeared after his arrest by the Soviet military in 1945 
 
 Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who helped thousands of Hungarian Jews to escape Nazi mass murder in World War Two, has been formally pronounced dead by Sweden's Tax Agency. 
 
 He was arrested by Soviet forces in Hungary in 1945 and disappeared. He is thought to have died in a Soviet prison, but his fate remains a mystery. 
 
 Thousands of Jews escaped deportation to Auschwitz because Wallenberg gave them Swedish protective passes. 
 
 His story became legendary after 1945. 
 
 The former Soviet authorities said he must have died in a Moscow prison in 1947. 
 
 But his family were sceptical about that version of events, and spent decades trying to establish what actually happened to him. 
 
 'Died in 1952' 
 
 Last November they called on the Swedish Tax Agency to officially declare him dead. The request was made via Sweden's SEB Bank, acting as a trustee. 
 
 "He shall be deemed to have died 31 July, 1952," the tax agency said. 
 
 Pia Gustafsson of the tax agency said that date was chosen because it fell "five years after he went missing, which was believed to be the end of July, 1947". 
 
 That procedure complied with a Swedish law used in cases where the circumstances of death were not clear, she told the BBC. 
 
 His family requested that he be declared dead officially, in order to "let Raoul rest in peace", Sweden's Aftonbladet daily reported. 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption Stockholm, August 2012: Wallenberg's sister Nina Lagergren helped to unveil a memorial to him 
 
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 In August the World Jewish Congress quoted a report alleging that Wallenberg was executed in a Soviet prison in 1947. The claim was made in a diary by Ivan Serov, a former director of the Soviet KGB secret police. 
 
 The Israeli Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem honours Wallenberg as one of the "righteous among the nations" for having saved so many Jewish lives in the war. 
 
 Wallenberg's rescue efforts began in July 1944, after his arrival as a diplomat in Budapest. The Nazis had already deported nearly 440,000 Jews from Hungary, most of them to the Auschwitz death camp, where many were murdered on arrival. 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption The intensive search for Wallenberg continued for decades but was fruitless 
 
 Ms Gustafsson said two contradictory Russian statements had contributed to Sweden's decision to declare Wallenberg dead: 
 
 The "Smoltsov report" which said Wallenberg died of a heart attack in his cell in a Moscow prison on 17 July 1947 
 
 KGB documents handed over in 1991 revealed Wallenberg had been questioned in Moscow's Lubyanka prison on 23 July 1947. 
 
 Wallenberg's mother Maj von Dardel and stepfather Fredrik von Dardel committed suicide in 1979, heartbroken over the Soviet authorities' failure to disclose details of Wallenberg's fate, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

 FILE - This undated handout photo from Pressens Bild shows Swedish diplomat and World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg. Swedish authorities have formally confirmed on Monday Oct. 31, 2016, that World War... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - This undated handout photo from Pressens Bild shows Swedish diplomat and World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg. Swedish authorities have formally confirmed on Monday Oct. 31, 2016, that World War... (Associated Press) 
 
 STOCKHOLM (AP) — World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg, who is credited with helping at least 20,000 Hungarian Jews escape the Holocaust, has been pronounced dead by Swedish authorities, 71 years after he disappeared under mysterious circumstances. 
 
 The Swedish diplomat is believed to have died in Soviet captivity, but when and how remains unclear. 
 
 Wallenberg was officially considered a missing person in Sweden, long after authorities gave up hope of finding him alive. But the Swedish Tax Agency, which registers births and deaths in Sweden, confirmed a report Monday in newspaper Expressen that Wallenberg had been pronounced dead. 
 
 Pia Gustafsson, who heads the agency's legal department, told The Associated Press that the decision was taken on Oct. 26 after an application from Wallenberg's trustee. 
 
 She said the date of Wallenberg's death was set as July 31, 1952, a date chosen by default under a rule saying a missing person who is presumed to have died should be declared dead five years after his disappearance. 
 
 Wallenberg vanished after being arrested by the Red Army in 1945. The Soviets initially denied he was in their custody, but in 1957 they said he had died of a heart attack in prison on July 17, 1947. 
 
 Another report suggested he was still alive six days later. There have been numerous unconfirmed witness accounts from people saying they saw him decades later. 
 
 Wallenberg, who was born in 1912, helped Jews escape Nazi-occupied Germany by giving them Swedish passports. 
 
 Many countries have memorials commemorating his work, including Israel, which designated him as one of the "Righteous Among the Nations," the highest honor granted to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
– Some 71 years after he disappeared in circumstances that remain murky to this day, the World War II hero known as the "Swedish Schindler" has finally been declared dead. Raoul Wallenberg, a diplomat who was sent to Budapest, Hungary, in July of 1944, saved at least 20,000 Jews from the Holocaust by giving them Swedish passports, the AP reports. He was arrested by the Red Army in early 1945 after the city was occupied by the Soviets. The Soviets announced in 1957 that Wallenberg, who was 32 when he vanished, had died of heart failure in a Moscow prison in 1947, though uncertainty over his fate lingered for decades, the BBC reports. His heartbroken mother and stepfather took their own lives in 1979. Swedish authorities say that after an application from a representative of the family, they declared his date of death to be July 31, 1952. "This date is purely formal. Legally, we must choose a date at least five years after his disappearance, and there were signs of life until the end of July 1947," an official from the country's tax authority tells AFP. But though Wallenberg is now officially dead, his memory is kept alive in his homeland and in countries including Israel, where he's honored as one of the "Righteous Among the Nations" for saving Jewish lives, and the US, where he was only the second person, after Winston Churchill, to be declared an honorary American citizen. (This Holocaust hero's will was recently found in a box in the Church of Scotland's archives.)