Swedish Heroes and Statues

Hat tip Vlad Tepes and Gates of Vienna. Translation by Fousesquawk.

Back in 2013, I was involved in an unsuccessful effort to get a bust of Raoul Wallenberg placed at the University of California Irvine campus, where I was a part-time teacher. I was working with Peter Lancz, the son of a Hungarian Holocaust survivor and famed sculptor, Paul Lancz, who had created a bust of Wallenberg in his honor. Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazis toward the end of World War 2, including Paul Lancz. Wallenberg was arrested by the occupying Soviet Army and disappeared into their prison system, where he died in captivity.

It was the younger Lancz, who resides in Orange County, who wanted to donate a bust of Wallenberg to UC Irvine made from a mold of the original bust. He enlisted my help since I was an activist working at UC Irvine. To that end, we met with two officials of UC Irvine. How that meeting went is described here.

But even though one Swedish hero is not memorialized on the UC Irvine campus, another Swedish hero is being memorialized at another university, the University of Winchester in England. That’s because they have erected- not a bust of Wallenberg- but a life-sized statue in bronze of Swedish hero, Greta Thunberg.

Given the cost involved to the university, that is receiving a lot of criticism from faculty and students, especially considering the hard times and budget cuts the university has had to make due to the Covid crisis.  The below video from the Swedish news outlet, Aftonbladet, is translated by Fousesquawk.