El Salvador seeks award for consul who saved Jews

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — El Salvador is seeking a prestigious Israeli award for its late consul Jose Arturo Castellanos for saving thousands of Jews from the Holocaust in World War II, a top Salvadoran official said Wednesday.

"We seek recognition for colonel Castellanos so he can receive the 'Righteous Among the Nations' title," from Israel, Foreign Ministry Historical Investigation Committee coordinator Ricardo Moran told reporters after presenting a documentary on his life.

Castellanos, who served in Geneva as consul for El Salvador from 1942 to 1945, and his first secretary, George Mandel Mantello, issued Salvadoran citizenship papers to thousands of Jews, mostly from Hungary, so they could avoid being sent to Nazi death camps.

The "certificates of life," as...