Eduardo Propper de Callejón
Eduardo Propper de Callejón (born April 9, 1895 in Madrid , † January 11, 1972 in London ) was a Spanish diplomat who enabled thousands of Jews to escape from occupied France between 1940 and 1944 during the Second World War .
Life
His father Max Proper was a Jewish banker from Bohemia . His Catholic mother Juana Callejón was the daughter of a Spanish diplomat. She raised Eduardo and his brothers in the Catholic faith.
In 1915 he completed his studies of law and went in the same year to the Diplomatic School. In 1918 he embarked on a diplomatic career, but left the service in 1931 in disgust for the second Spanish republic . After Francoism came to power , however, he rejoined in 1936.
Proper de Callejón became First Secretary of the Spanish Embassy in Paris when France declared surrender to Germany on June 20, 1940 . He prevented the looting of the art collection of his wife's family in the Chateau de Royaumont by the Wehrmacht by making this castle his main residence. As a result, she was now protected in the same way as the accommodation of another diplomat and was treated privileged. The works of art also included a triptych by Van Eyck (one of Adolf Hitler's favorite painters ).
In July 1940 he issued more than thirty thousand transit visas to Jews from the Spanish consulate in Bordeaux , in collaboration with the Portuguese consul Aristides de Sousa Mendes , so that they could cross Spain to get to Portugal. When the Spanish Foreign Minister Ramón Serrano Súñer learned that de Callejón was issuing visas without the prior approval of his ministry, he transferred him to the consulate in Larache in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco . He was then transferred to Rabat , Zurich , Washington , Ottawa and Oslo .
Trivia
- His wife Hélène Fould-Springer (1906–1997) was a public figure and painter . She came from a Jewish, Austro- French banking family. After the Second World War, she converted to Catholicism .
- His sister-in-law Liliane de Rothschild (1916-2003) was the wife of the prominent patron and philanthropist Élie de Rothschild .
- He was the maternal grandfather of British actress Helena Bonham Carter .
- He never received public recognition for his exploits before his death.
- On March 12, 2008, Yad Vashem , the Holocaust memorial in Israel , named him Righteous Among the Nations .
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20120612061520/http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/wp-content/files_flutter/3316.pdf
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/nov/03/1
- ↑ Eduardo Propper de Callejón on the website of Yad Vashem (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Propper de Callejón, Eduardo |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Spanish diplomat and savior (from 30,000 people) in World War II |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 9, 1895 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Madrid |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 11, 1972 |
| Place of death | London |