Salvadoran diplomat who helped Jews during Holocaust to be named righteous gentile

[Behind the Aegis]

Source: Ha'aretz

A Salvadoran diplomat who gave citizenship certificates to tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust will be named posthumously as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Jose Arturo Castellanos, who helped nearly 40,000 Jews during the war, is the first Salvadoran to be so recognized.

The Righteous Among the Nations recognizes non-Jews who helped Jews escape death in Nazi-controlled Europe


Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/salvadoran-diplomat-who-helped-jews-during-holocaust-to-be-named-righteous-gentile-1.290339

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Also:

---snip---

"The Jewish Community owes a debt of gratitude to El Salvador for the heroic actions of its diplomats in rescuing and saving members of a doomed Jewish community," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor. "Castellanos put himself at great personal risk in issuing citizenship certificates to save Jews and never sought to personally benefit from the scheme."



Castellanos was El Salvador's Consul-General in Geneva. In 1942, on Castellanos' suggestion, the Salvadoran Consulate issued thousands of "citizenship certificates" to Jews from different parts of Europe. Holders of the certificates were considered citizens of El Salvador, and protected by the International Red Cross. Salvadoran citizenship papers were sent to thousands of Jews in occupied countries across Europe, free of charge, in the midst of the lucrative black market for false papers. After the war, Castellanos was posted in London. He died in his homeland in 1977.

---snip---

http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/5760_52.htm

[babylonsister]

1. Thanks and rec'd. This is some history I never knew about, and a

hero I never heard about. I'm glad he's getting some recognition finally.

[Liberation Angel]

24. there's a few of them

check out the links I posted below...

:hi:

[The Second Stone]

2. Good for him

Too bad it couldn't have happened when he was still alive.

[Xipe Totec]

3. To Hispanics, death is just a door to another room

I am sure he will be pleased.

[Liberation Angel]

14. I like that

got a source for that wisdom?

I could use that.

Thx

LA

[Xipe Totec]

16. The Day of the Dead

Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life, the natives viewed it as the continuation of life. Instead of fearing death, they embraced it. To them, life was a dream and only in death did they become truly awake.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/ent/dead/articles/dead-history.html#ixzz0o2Jx70gs


Also see Magical realism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism

[Liberation Angel]

19. Thanks for that

love all that stuff.

You might be interested to know that the artists in the resistance (which I linked the articles to in this thread) were really into that stuff too (as was Bingham, who was an artist too and into mysticism and tibetan buddhism.anthroposophy).

Wilfredo Lam (an Afro-Chinese Cuban) was a key member of this antifascist/antiNazi group - they even created their own Tarot deck.

[nodehopper]

17. please don't generalize about "all Hispanics"

it is racist, even if you mean well.

[Liberation Angel]

20. My guess is that he/she IS Hispanic...

but she/he did not say ALL...

In fact he clarified that he was refrring not to Spaniards but to the more indigenous folks in Latin/Central America etc.

Jeez, even the word Hispanic itself is tricky...

:shrug: :loveya: :hug:

[nodehopper]

21. it is a tricky word, indeed

indigenous folks in Latin/Central America would not be Hispanic at all--they would be Maya, Aymara, Quechua, etc. etc. "Hispanic" as an ethnic designation and as language, of course, does harken back to the Spanish conquest, so those who have that heritage would be at the very least mestizos.

[Xipe Totec]

22. Please don't generalize Hispanics

It's racist to pigenhole people even if you mean well.

[nodehopper]

23. I was talking about the etymology of the word

not self-identification...and it was in response to a comment that referred to Hispanics as "the more indigenous folks in Central and South America" where "the more indigenous folks"

[FightingBobsghost]

4. K&R

We need to learn about heroes like this. Especially now.

[EFerrari]

5. What is remarkable is that he did this during the Martinez regime.

Martinez resigned after a general strike two years later in 44. He was a horrible bigot.

[Old Troop]

6. What an uplifting story. why weren't American diplomats

doing the same thing. Oh wait, we were too busy turning away ships full of Jews.

[Behind the Aegis]

7. There was at least one.

Hiram "Harry" Bingham IV (July 17, 1903 – January 12, 1988) was an American diplomat. He served as a Vice-Consul in Marseille, France, during World War II, and helped over 2,500 Jews to flee from France as Nazi forces advanced.

[Liberation Angel]

10. There were also Arab and Muslim rescuers of Jews

I believe there was, in particular, a Turkich consul. But I have read stories that the Egyptian consuls helped with Bingham and Varian Fry's network.

There is an excellent exhibit called "Visas for Life" which was at Ellis Island a year or so ago which had all these diplomats who defied their governments to help (Including Sugihara from Japan, who acted in Lithuania) and Feng Shan Ho, a Chinese diplomat in Austria.

I will try to find their site.

Here is something on the Turksh diplomat (The Nazis murdered his pregnant wife in retaliation):

http://www.visasforlife.info/id116.html

There is more an the Salvadoran, on Bingham and others there.

[Behind the Aegis]

12. I am aware of this.

My respose was to the poster who made a comment about American diplomats. There are more than 22,765 persons who are recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations."

See also: Muslim Family Who Hid 26 Jews honored by ADL, Noor Anayat Khan: The princess who became a spy, ADL Honors Woman as Teenage Rescuer of Jews During Holocaust, The Righteous: Albanian Muslims Hid Jews from the Nazis, Latvia honours Holocaust rescuers, Poland honors woman who saved 2,500 Jews -- Irena Sendler, Belgium bids farewell to resistance hero who saved Jews and 'Japanese Schindler' who saved Lithuanian Jews is honoured

[Liberation Angel]

13. But only 3 Americans are recognized as rescuers- all 3 worked with the American diplomat Bingham

Varian Fry and 2 Quakers are the ONLY Americans recognized by Yad Vashem (the Jewish Shoah foundation in Jerusalem) as having risked their lives to help Jews during the Shoah.

Only THREE Americans actually proven to have helped Jews survive Hitler. The American diplomat helped all three in their illegal efforts to smuggle refugees to freedom.

I will add that there is an effort by Pierre Sauvage (a Jew born in hiding by the French Resistance who won a Dupont award for his film called "Weapons of the Spirit" about his experience)) to get those Americans who helped Varian Fry be honored by Israel (See the Varan Fry Foundation Website) He has a film in the works which should be out this year.

But it is incredible to me that not more Americans, civilians or otherwise, risked their necks to save people from the Nazis.

While US GIs risked everything, it is true, not enough Americans cared as much as Fry and his group to actually go into the belly of the beast to rescue people scheduled for extermination by the BushNazis.

There are lessons here and I hope we learn them. Failure to resist evil seals our own fates. We are still feeling the aftermath of that trauma to all humanity

[rockymountaindem]

8. K & R

[Liberation Angel]

9. Excellent piece on underground smuggling of Jews and leftists in France (and antifascist ops...

in Argentina at the end of the war by some of the same folks....

Vice Consul Hiram Bingham IV (son of the Peruvian explorer/archaeologist who excavated Machu Picchu in Peru ) , Progressive NY Journalist Varian Fry, and a small underground group of American women and men, alongside the Spanish Republicans (antifascist), Jewish underground, the French Resistance and the German anti-Nazi community (artists, writers. leftist politicians), even some Revolutionary antiStalin Trotskyites (Victor Serge) all worked together to set up the antiBushNazi underground railroad.

Among them was the "father" of surrealist poetry, Andre Breton and the family of Thomas Mann. Others include the afro-cuban surrealist Wilfredo Lam and the leader of the French Resistance (Jean Moulin) and the "Wisdom Chair of the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi who hung out with Ram Dass and dropped acid with Tim Leary - he was 17 when he got a visa from Bingham)

Marc Chagall and Max Ernst were among those rescued by this operation with an American diplomat helping against the orrders of FDR's state department (even though E;eanor helped some by pressuring her husband to grant emergency visas).

A GREAT article in the Smithsonian can be read here and is a MODEL for wtf we should be doing:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/39458447.html "(Bingham's List - The Man Who Saved Chagall") [note: it should be "the men and women who saved Chagall" including two amazing american females who risked their lives to help and because there were a lot of heroic people in this network, but...highly recommend this article and the comments after.

[Liberation Angel]

11. K&R All Duers should check this out

The networks of rescue are templates for passive peaceful resistance to totalitarianism.

The applicability to circumstances today cannot be understated.

[Judi Lynn]

15. Thank you for this information. His concern for the lives of good people

in peril outweighed his need to simply protect himself.

Not a common story, unfortunately.

http://deorienteaoccidente.files.wordpress.com.nyud.net:8090/2008/06/jacastellanos1.jpg

Jose Arturo Castellanos

[LeftishBrit]

18. A real hero.