El Schindler Salvadoreño que salvó a miles de judíos de la muerte salta en los editoriales de la prensa británica
Hace varios meses publicamos en nuestro blog un artículo titulado HISTORIA: Pasaporte protegió a los judíos que habla de la generosidad de José Arturo Castellanos, un notable salvadoreño, que fungía como cónsul en Ginebra, Suiza, y quien decidió por su cuenta salvar de la quema a decenas de miles de judíos perseguidos por los nazis durante la II Guerra Mundial. (Foto: The Guardian: José Castellanos)La buena labor de este señor ha sido finalmente recogida por los medios, no sólo nacionales sino también internacionales para dar a conocer esa extraordinaria y arriesgada labor que llevó a cabo y que, hasta hace poco tiempo, el Gobierno de Israel desconocía en su totalidad.
Ahora el gobierno de Israel indaga más en esta historia y se plantea reconocer de "forma oficial" la hazaña de José Arturo Castellanos por salvar a muchos judíos del holocausto llevado a cabo por los nazis.
El editorial que les presentamos salió en la versión impresa del prestigioso periódico británico The Guardian.
Con ustedes, José Arturo Castellanos, el Schindler salvadoreño que salvó a muchos de la muerte en los campos de concentración durante la II Guerra Mundial.
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Call to honour El Salvador's rescuer of Jews after war role rediscovered
By Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
He was El Salvador's equivalent of Oskar Schindler, a man who was given a chance to do something about the Holocaust - and took it.
Now, six decades after José Castellanos helped to save 25,000 Jews by granting bogus nationality certificates, the story of the central American nation's consul general to Switzerland during the second world war has been rediscovered.
"The memory of our father is out of the desk, out of the drawers and on the table again," Frieda Garcia, one of the diplomat's daughters, told a news conference at El Salvador's embassy in Washington this week, amid calls for Castellanos to be honoured posthumously by Israel.
Castellanos, an army colonel, served as a diplomat in Liverpool and Hamburg before being posted to Geneva in 1942 where he befriended a Romanian Jew, Gyorgy Mandl.
To protect Mandl he appointed him to the fictitious post of first secretary and amended his name to the more Latino-sounding George Mandel-Mantello.
The two men set about issuing blank nationality certificates for Jews in German-occupied central Europe, especially Hungary.
To make them seem more authentic the documents, signed by Mantello, were stamped by other consulates in Geneva before being spirited over the border to grateful recipients who filled in their details.
The so-called "freedom papers" afforded protection against deportation to Nazi extermination camps and gave meaning to the name El Salvador, which means The Saviour.
Many of the documents were sent to Budapest where Carl Lutz, the Swiss vice-consul, provided sanctuary to thousands of Jews at an abandoned glass factory known as his "Glass House".
Neither Castellanos nor Mandl had the authority to issue the documents, and El Salvador had sided with the allies against Germany, but the papers offered some protection from Nazi round-ups.
It did not matter that few recipients would ever travel to their supposed homeland, a tiny country of rainforest and Pacific coast 6,000 miles away, wedged between Guatemala and Honduras, and that possibly few had even heard of it before.
Castellanos and Mandl persuaded suspicious Swiss and Hungarian officials that the documents were genuine and that there was indeed a sizeable Salvadorean diaspora in this corner of Europe.
The initiative evoked the efforts of Raul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, and Schindler, a German industrialist, who separately risked their lives and fortunes to save thousands of Jews.
After the war Castellanos lived a quiet life and played down his role, said Garcia. "He said whoever was in his place would have done the same. For him it was not heroic nor spectacular."
The writer Leon Uris tracked down the retired diplomat in 1972 and Castellanos gave a brief radio interview in 1976 but otherwise he remained anonymous and his contribution went unrecognised. He died in 1977, three years after Schindler's equally low-key passing.
Until now Latin America's best known role in the Nazi genocide was the "rat lines" which spirited wanted war criminals such as Adolf Eichmann to Argentina and Klaus Barbie to Bolivia.
Castellanos's story has been brought to light by a new documentary film called The Glass House, directed and produced by Brad and Leonor Marlowe, and a campaign in El Salvador by the foreign ministry and the country's small Jewish community.
"This is the story of a man with great courage who stood up against a system," Ricardo Moran Ferracuti, a Salvadorian official, told the Cox News Service. The campaign has urged Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust museum to confer the title Righteous Gentile on Castellanos.
Call to honour El Salvador's rescuer of Jews after war role rediscovered
By Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
He was El Salvador's equivalent of Oskar Schindler, a man who was given a chance to do something about the Holocaust - and took it.
Now, six decades after José Castellanos helped to save 25,000 Jews by granting bogus nationality certificates, the story of the central American nation's consul general to Switzerland during the second world war has been rediscovered.
"The memory of our father is out of the desk, out of the drawers and on the table again," Frieda Garcia, one of the diplomat's daughters, told a news conference at El Salvador's embassy in Washington this week, amid calls for Castellanos to be honoured posthumously by Israel.
Castellanos, an army colonel, served as a diplomat in Liverpool and Hamburg before being posted to Geneva in 1942 where he befriended a Romanian Jew, Gyorgy Mandl.
To protect Mandl he appointed him to the fictitious post of first secretary and amended his name to the more Latino-sounding George Mandel-Mantello.
The two men set about issuing blank nationality certificates for Jews in German-occupied central Europe, especially Hungary.
To make them seem more authentic the documents, signed by Mantello, were stamped by other consulates in Geneva before being spirited over the border to grateful recipients who filled in their details.
The so-called "freedom papers" afforded protection against deportation to Nazi extermination camps and gave meaning to the name El Salvador, which means The Saviour.
Many of the documents were sent to Budapest where Carl Lutz, the Swiss vice-consul, provided sanctuary to thousands of Jews at an abandoned glass factory known as his "Glass House".
Neither Castellanos nor Mandl had the authority to issue the documents, and El Salvador had sided with the allies against Germany, but the papers offered some protection from Nazi round-ups.
It did not matter that few recipients would ever travel to their supposed homeland, a tiny country of rainforest and Pacific coast 6,000 miles away, wedged between Guatemala and Honduras, and that possibly few had even heard of it before.
Castellanos and Mandl persuaded suspicious Swiss and Hungarian officials that the documents were genuine and that there was indeed a sizeable Salvadorean diaspora in this corner of Europe.
The initiative evoked the efforts of Raul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, and Schindler, a German industrialist, who separately risked their lives and fortunes to save thousands of Jews.
After the war Castellanos lived a quiet life and played down his role, said Garcia. "He said whoever was in his place would have done the same. For him it was not heroic nor spectacular."
The writer Leon Uris tracked down the retired diplomat in 1972 and Castellanos gave a brief radio interview in 1976 but otherwise he remained anonymous and his contribution went unrecognised. He died in 1977, three years after Schindler's equally low-key passing.
Until now Latin America's best known role in the Nazi genocide was the "rat lines" which spirited wanted war criminals such as Adolf Eichmann to Argentina and Klaus Barbie to Bolivia.
Castellanos's story has been brought to light by a new documentary film called The Glass House, directed and produced by Brad and Leonor Marlowe, and a campaign in El Salvador by the foreign ministry and the country's small Jewish community.
"This is the story of a man with great courage who stood up against a system," Ricardo Moran Ferracuti, a Salvadorian official, told the Cox News Service. The campaign has urged Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust museum to confer the title Righteous Gentile on Castellanos.
Me gusta que tierra salga en las paginas de otros paises por la generocidad de su gente.
ReplyDeleteP. Aimar
Londres
Gracias por compartir esta noticia. No sabía que hubiera un Schindler latinoamericano y menos que este fuera salvadoreño.
ReplyDeleteA. Osorio
Silver Spring, MD.
Esta historia ya estaba caliente en los medios salvadoreños, pero no sabia que la historia puediera ser publica por the Guardian.
ReplyDeleteBien que se nos una imagen de gente solidaria y civilizada, eso esta bien.
Este paisano debe de reconecercele como es debido. salvar la vida de muchos es DIGNO DE RECONOCIMIENTO.
ReplyDeleteDeseo saber si Salvadoreños en el mundo hara algun tipo de campaña a favor de la memoria de este paisano?
Saludos,
Jose Matatias Delgado Y Del Hambre.
Jose M.D. Y Del Hambre,
ReplyDeleteque buena propuesta la que haces, deberiamos abrir una discusion de como deberia ser la iniciativa para la memoria del paisano en donde todos y todas desde los mas alejados rincones de la Diaspora, participemos en organizar la misma.
Que te parece?
Propongamosle a los amigos y amigas de SEEM abrir la discusion y propuestas. Que piensan los diasporines y diasporinas que viven en Israel?
Saludos,
Pedro Ordimales
Utah
Jose M.D. Y Del Hambre,
ReplyDeleteque buena propuesta la que haces, deberiamos abrir una discusion de como deberia ser la iniciativa para la memoria del paisano en donde todos y todas desde los mas alejados rincones de la Diaspora, participemos en organizar la misma.
Que te parece?
Propongamosle a los amigos y amigas de SEEM abrir la discusion y propuestas. Que piensan los diasporines y diasporinas que viven en Israel?
Saludos,
Pedro Ordimales
Utah
Estimado Pedro Ardimales:
ReplyDeleteGracias por corresponder a tal opinion.
Creo que SEEM tendra su Convencion en la UCA este año, seria motivador y sensible, el proponer una campaña para la realizacion de un homenaje o reconocimiento publico al honorable Consul Salvadoreño en Ginebra Suiza el Sr. Jose Arturo Castellanos quien sin duda alguna, estaria en este siglo emitiendo pasaportes de salida a tanto inmigrante atropellado en el mundo PARANOICO CONTRA INMIGRANTES !
Propongamos en el SEEM tal reconocimiento.
Atentamente,
Jose Matatias Delgado Y Del Hambre.