Israel Recognizes El Salvador's Holocaust Role

(Caption Picture: A panel at the Embassy of El Salvador discusses the role that two men, both working for El Salvador, played in saving approximately 30,000 Jews.)

In a time when the jewish population of England was in danger of being exterminated at a very quick pace. A small country in El Salvador stepped up to the plate to offer citizenship to those that were in danger of being sent to a concentration camp. In honor of that El Salvador honored by Prime Minister Tzipi Livni in a ceremony showing how big El Salvador’s hearts are in a time of unprecedented tyranny by an evil dictator...

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Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni is presenting a special Certificate of Commemoration on Tuesday to El Salvadoran Foreign Minister Marisol Argueta de Barillas in tribute to her country's policy of saving Jews during the Holocaust.
The certificate, which will be presented to Foreign Minister Barillas after a working lunch, states:
"The government and people of Israel extend their deepest gratitude to the El Salvadoran government, which, by issuing El Salvadoran citizenship papers at the consulate in Geneva, headed by Consul-General José Arturo Castellanos Contreras, contributed to saving perhaps as many as 30,000 persecuted European Jews during the Second World War."

During the Second World War, Contreras issued thousands of false citizenship papers to Jews from central Europe, mainly from Hungary. In 1942, he appointed a Transylvanian-born Jewish businessman named György Mandl as the consulate's "First Secretary," a fictitious title that does not exist in the Salvadoran diplomatic hierarchy, in order to enable him to issue the life-saving papers. These documents enabled whole families to register as citizens of El Salvador and avoid deportation to Nazi concentration camps.

In July 1944, El Salvador requested that Switzerland act as the protector of its citizens in Hungary, at the time under Nazi occupation. As far as it is known, the vast majority of El Salvadoran citizens in Hungary at that time were Jews who received their citizenship papers from the consulate in Geneva.

On Monday, Foreign Minister Barillas toured Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Museum. The El Salvadoran government is seeking to have Contreras officially declared Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

A 2008 documentary called "Glass House" told the story of Contreras' heroic efforts. It was directed and produced by husband and wife Brad and Leonor Avila Marlowe.