Raoul Wallenberg's passport photo from June 1944. Photo: wiki commons.

The Raoul Wallenberg Honorary Citizen Committee, based in Israel, has sent a letter to the Swedish government, asking them to issue a yellow notice – used to locate missing persons – to Interpol, to help solve the mystery of Wallenberg’s disappearance in 1945.

Credited with savings thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust while acting as Sweden’s special envoy to Budapest in 1944, the University of Michigan educated diplomat and humanitarian was detained by the Soviet Union in 1945 and later declared dead in 1947.

“We would like the Riksdag to approve the issuing of a yellow notice to find Raoul Wallenberg,” Max Grenberg of the Raoul Wallenberg Honorary Citizen Committee told The Local in Sweden on Wednesday.

Interpol stated in 2011 that they would be williing to issue a yellow notice for Wallenberg if Sweden formally asked them to do so.  However, according to Grenberg, the Swedish government has been apprehensive to issue a formal request.

“They say that they are trying to pursue all political avenues to gain access to the Russian archives and that a yellow notice may hinder these efforts,” he stated.

The letter comes nearly a week after the United States Congress awarded Wallenberg the Congressional Gold Medal “in recognition of his achievements and heroic actions during the Holocaust.”

“The urgency of this request cannot be overstated, since the witnesses we are attempting to find are most likely in their 80s or 90s and their life expectancies are obviously limited,” said Grenberg.