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RIO DE JANEIRO \u2014 An army colonel and diplomat from El Salvador who helped save tens of thousands of Jews from Nazi persecution during World War II by providing them with false Salvadoran identity papers was honored in Germany.<\/p>\n
The tribute to Jose Arturo Castellanos, who served as El Salvador\u2019s consul general in Geneva, was held last week by Germany\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Relations and the Berlin Jewish Center, the Elsalvador.com<\/a>\u00a0news portal reported.<\/p>\n The film \u201cThe Rescue,\u201d which documents Castellanos\u2019s little-known but heroic acts during the Holocaust, was screened to the audience, which included El Salvador\u2019s ambassador in Germany, Jos\u00e9 Atilio Benitez Parada.<\/p>\n Yad Vashem representative Sandra Witte said that Castellanos, who was recognized posthumously as Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli Holocaust memorial and museum in 2010, is a distinguished icon among all saviors.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can say that very few are like Jose Castellanos or Raoul Wallenberg, who have saved several thousands. And it happened in times that they say there was no margin for action and nothing could have been done. Castellanos proved something can be done,\u201d Witte said.<\/p>\n Felix Klein, a German diplomat, said Castellanos\u2019s example shows that denying the Holocaust is inconsistent.<\/p>\n \u201cIf a diplomat from a foreign country could be aware, many Germans could be, too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n While in Switzerland during World War II, Castellanos befriended George Mandel, a Hungarian-Jewish businessman. Castellanos appointed his friend, who adopted the more Spanish- or Italian-sounding name of George Mandel-Mantello, to serve as the consulate\u2019s first secretary, a fictitious title.<\/p>\n They issued passports or visas identifying thousands of European Jews as citizens of El Salvador to save the holders from the Nazis. In 1944, this relatively small-scale distribution of Salvadoran documents became almost a mass production.<\/p>\n Eventually Castellanos realized that he could not issue the documents quickly enough to save most Jews. So he and Mandel-Mantello secretly distributed more than 13,000 \u201ccertificates of Salvadoran citizenship\u201d to Central European Jews, which allowed them to receive the protection of the International Red Cross and eventually the Swiss consul in Budapest. Due to these efforts<\/a>, now called the \u201cEl Salvador Action,\u201d at least 25,000 Jews were saved.<\/p>\n