José Arturo Castellanos Contreras

José Arturo Castellanos Contreras

José Arturo Castellanos Contreras (born December 23, 1893 in Ciudad San Vicente , † June 18, 1977 in San Salvador ) was consul of El Salvador in Geneva from November 4, 1941 to October 1, 1945 . He got the nickname " Schindler von El Salvador".

During the time of National Socialism in Germany , Castellanos confirmed the alleged El Salvadoran citizenship for around 40,000 Jews in order to protect them from racist persecution and murder by the National Socialists .

biography

José Arturo Castellanos Contreras was born to General Adelino Castellanos and Isabel Contreras and had two brothers. He married the Swiss Maria Schürmann, with whom he had a daughter and two sons: Frieda, Paul Andree, and José Arturo Castellanos Jr.

In January 1910, at the age of 13, Contreras became a cadet at the Escuela Politécnica, which he left as a non-commissioned officer in September 1913 . In 1914 he became department commander in the artillery and in 1917 was promoted to colonel and commander of the artillery regiment. In 1921 after another promotion he moved to the Guardia Nacional as deputy commander and in 1928 as commander. In 1930 he returned to the artillery. In 1932, the year of the ethnocide in western El Salvador , he became a representative of the artillery on the General Staff of the Salvadoran Army (FAES) . The dictator and fascist friend Maximiliano Hernández Martínez sent him to Italy under the fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini .

Contreras studied at the Istituto di Studi Militari dell'Esercito in Turin in the 1930s. In 1936 he became deputy head of the general staff. Contreras received diplomatic immunity to buy weapons . The Solothurn weapons factory was a joint venture between the Hirtenberger cartridge factory (represented by Fritz Mandl ) and Rheinmetall (represented by weapons engineer Hans Eltze ) with which Austrian and German weapons were exported. Miguel Mármol reports on "an automatic pistol made in Germany that was called the» solo tour «". In June 1937 Castellanos traveled to the Czech Republic . On October 25, 1937 he was consul general of El Salvador to George VI. accredited in Liverpool.

On May 9, 1938, he was accredited as Consul General El Salvador to Adolf Hitler in Hamburg. The appointment as consul general of El Salvador in Hamburg was canceled due to the closure of the consulate on September 5, 1945. (El Salvador had declared war on the German Reich on December 8, 1941.) On November 4, 1941, he became Consul General of El Salvador with Marcel Pilet-Golaz in Geneva. Gyorgy Mandl was like Contreras attaché . After being captured by the Nazis in Zagreb , Gyorgy Mandl managed to escape to Geneva. Mandl knew Contreras from his business activities. Contreras naturalized Mandl in El Salvador and gave him the name George Mandel-Mantello . About 40,000 nationality certificates have been issued for El Salvador. With these nationality certificates it was not possible to leave the country (as with passports), but they put the owners under the protection of the International Committee of the Red Cross .

Medal awarded by Yad Vashem to the "Righteous Among the Nations"

Honors

Colonel Contreras' efforts on behalf of the Jews of Central Europe have been recognized at various times by the Anti-Defamation League , the American Jewish Committee, and the Visas For Life group . In 1999, the Jerusalem City Council honored Contreras' granddaughter on the occasion of the inauguration of El Salvador Street. In 1995, in a letter to the Anti-Defamation League , President Bill Clinton paid tribute to Colonel Contreras and other members of the Salvadoran diplomatic corps for their efforts to save thousands from Nazi annihilation. Contreras, who hardly spoke of his role as a savior during World War II, was interviewed on the subject by writer Leon Uris in 1972 . After the interview, his daughter asked him why he had never told her. He replied, “Because everyone would have done the same in my place”. For him it was nothing heroic or spectacular.

After interviewing the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Jewish community of El Salvador, José Arturo Castellanos Contreras was awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 2010 . He also appears on a list maintained by the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation as one of the diplomats who campaigned for the rescue of Jews.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Schindler of El Salvador , Jüdische Allgemeine, June 30, 2019. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
2. ↑ pagina12: Martínez lo envió a Europa con la misión de comprar armas Página / 12 :: El mundo :: Rescatan al Schindler salvadoreño
3. ↑ Roque Dalton The world is a limping millipede, The Century of Miguel Mármol , Rotpunktverlag, Zurich, 1997, p. 207.
4. ↑ Acuerdo # 133 del 5 de Septiembre 1945.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Pablo Brum, Mariana Dambolena, On Diplomatic Commitment to Human Rights , May 14, 2009. p. 4. Accessed July 4, 2019.
6. ↑ El Schindler salvadoreño (Spanish), BBC Mundo, June 18, 2008. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
7. ↑ José Castellanos Contreras , Yad Vashem. Retrieved July 4, 2019.