Harald Edelstam

Harald Edelstam (1913–1989) was a Swedish diplomat. During World War II he earned the nickname "Svarta nejlikan" ("the Black Pimpernel," a reference to The Scarlet Pimpernel) for helping SOE agents and saboteurs escape from the Germans. During the 1970s he was stationed in Santiago, Chile, and became known as the "Raoul Wallenberg of the 1970s" when he helped Cuban diplomats and Uruguayan political refugees escape persecution by Augusto Pinochet.

One night during a coup, the Cuban embassy was under fire by tanks and Cubans were returning fire from the windows; Edelstam took a Swedish flag in hand and walked in front of the tanks as bullets hurled past. He fetched the Cubans out of the embassy and took them to the Swedish embassy, then got them out of Chile to safety. [ [http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/20thcentury/81-11baez-speech.html Joan Baez: Human Rights In The 80s: Seeing Through Both Eyes] ] Edelstam also helped many other Cubans to escape from Chile and was honored by Fidel Castro as a hero.

Due to his remarkable courage and moral integrity, Edelstam is today considered as a true modern-day hero among millions around Latin America, and particularly so among the hundreds of thousands of Chileans who were forced into exile by the dictatorial regime.

A film about Edelstam's actvities in Chile, "The Black Pimpernel," was released in September 2007.

References

* [http://www.amnesty.dk/default.asp?page=2822&lang=da Isabel Allende on Harald Edelstamm in an interview with Amnesty International]