Rescue in the Holocaust by Diplomats (Part 3)

Diplomats Who Rescued Jews

A-B                    C-J                    K-R               S-Z

* Recognized by the State of Israel as Righteous among the Nations, Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
** Recognized by the State of Israel with Letter of Commendation.

Paul Ernst Kanstein, German Legation, Copenhagen, Denmark

[Yahil, 1969]


Pertev Sevki Kantimir, Turkey, Consul General in Budapest, 1939-1942

[Shaw, Stanford J. Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey’s Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945. (New York: New York University Press, 1993).]


Herbert Kaplan, US Diplomat, Casablanca


Constantin Karadja, Consul General of Romania in Berlin, 1942-1944

Constantin Karadja, Consul General of Romania in Berlin, issued hundreds of Romanian visas to German Jews in Berlin during the period from 1942 to 1944.


Jan Karski,* Polish Diplomat

Polish diplomat-courier Jan Karski was a witness to the conditions in the Warsaw ghetto and the Izbica camp near the Belzec death camp.  Karski prepared written eyewitness accounts of the German atrocities in Nazi occupied Poland.  Later, he was smuggled out of Poland and into the United States, where he reported to US Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.  Frankfurter arranged for Karski to report to President Roosevelt.  Frankfurter was skeptical of the report:  “I did not say that he was lying, I said that I could not believe him.  There is a difference.”  Karski gave hundreds of talks to organizations all over the United States and Great Britain to bring pressure to intervene to save Jews from the Holocaust.  Karski was declared a Righteous Among the Nations in 1975 and made an honorary citizen of the state of Israel. 

[Karski, Jan. Story of a Secret State. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999). Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 10, 481, 787, 1749.]


Sandor (Alexander) Kasza-Kasser,* Secretary General of the Swedish Red Cross in Hungary, 1944-45

In April 1944, Kasser was appointed by Valdemar Langlet to be the Secretary General of the newly formed Swedish Red Cross in Budapest.  As a volunteer, Kasser was given the responsibility to organize for Langlet the administration of the Swedish Red Cross in Hungary.  Kasser designed the Swedish Red Cross protective papers.  Initially, about 400 of these protective papers were issued to Jews in Budapest.  He provided Jewish refugees with jobs in the Red Cross and he rented hospitals which were used to hide Jews. Kasser worked extensively with Raoul Wallenberg on numerous rescue missions to save Jews from Arrow Cross roundups and from death marches.  He received the Righteous Among the Nations award form the State of Israel in July 1997.  His wife, Elizabeth Kasser, was a Jewish volunteer for the Swedish legation in Budapest.  She served primarily as an interpreter for Raoul Wallenberg.


Dr. Ernst (Ernö) Katinsky, Legal Counsellor to the Hungarian Legation in Berlin, 194?

Dr. Ernst (Ernö) Katinsky was a German lawyer, possibly of Hungarian origin, who was appointed as a legal counsellor to the Hungarian legation in Berlin.  He represented the legal interests of the Hungarian government in the German Reich.  He was in charge of protecting the legal rights of Hungarian Jews resident in or trapped in Nazi occupied territory.

[Braham, Randolph L. “The treatment of Hungarian Jews in German-occupied Europe.” Yad Vashem Studies, 12 (1977), 127.]


Henrik Kauffmann, Danish Minister to the United States, 1943?

Henrik Kauffmann was a Danish Minister to the United States during the October 1943 action against Jews in Denmark.  Kauffmann asked the American government for help in rescuing Danish Jews.  He offered to reimburse the United States or any government for monies expended in rescue efforts.  He raised and administered funds to support Danish Jews and other refugees in Sweden.  He also distributed funds from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.  He helped to develop the Danish underground’s foreign policy.  In addition, he notified the US Secretary of State of the deportation actions and kept the State Department apprised of Nazi actions in Denmark.  The US government took no action.

[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives, New York City.  Breitman, Richard. “American rescue activities in Sweden.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies.  Yahil.  Yahil, Leni. The Rescue of Danish Jewry: Test of a Democracy. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1969), pp. 62, 358, 443 Fn 86.]



Hans Keller, Consul for Switzerland in Bratislava, Slovakia, and in Czechoslovakia

Hans Keller personally saved more than 25 Jews by smuggling them from Bratislava into Switzerland.  He did this against the official policy and regulations of Switzerland.  Hans Keller was sent to Bratislava in December 1944.  He worked with ICRC representative Georges Dunand and helped to hide Jews there.  Keller died at the age of 91 in Bern, Switzerland.

[Favez, Jean-Claude.  Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 196.  AG, G59/2, letter from Dunand of 18 December 1944.]


Necdet Kent, Consul for Turkey in Marseilles and Grenoble, France, 1942-45

Necdet Kent was the Vice Consul for the Turkish Republic stationed in Marseilles, France, in 1942.  He was later promoted to the rank of Consul and remained in Marseilles until 1945.  When Nazi Germany occupied France in 1940, many Jewish Turks and others fled to unoccupied Vichy France.  During the period of 1942-45, Kent issued numerous Turkish certificates of citizenship to Jewish refugees, preventing them from being deported to Nazi murder camps.  On one occasion, Kent boarded a deportation train bound for Auschwitz with Jews loaded on cattle cars.  Kent stopped the train and had the Jews released.

[Shaw, Stanford J. Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey’s Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945. (New York: New York University Press, 1993), pp. 64-66, 79, 95-96, 132-134, 148, 332, 341-344.]


Thomas J. Kiernan, Ireland’s Envoy to the Holy See

Thomas J. Kiernan was the Envoy of Ireland to the Vatican and the Holy See.  He attempted to intervene on behalf of Jews in Hungary and Slovakia.  His intervention was not successful.

[Wyman, David S. (Ed.). The World Reacts to the Holocaust. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 654.]


Elow Kihlgren,* Swedish diplomat stationed in Italy

Awarded Righteous Among the Nations status in 2001.


Alexander Kirk, Chargé d’Affaires at US Embassy in Berlin, 1938-39, US Embassy in Warsaw, 1940-?

Alexander Kirk was the Chargé d’Affaires at US Embassy in Berlin in 1938-39 and later at the US Embassy in Warsaw.  Kirk worked with US Consul General Dr. Raymond Hermann Geist in helping Jews obtain visas at the US Embassy in Berlin.  While stationed at the US embassy in Warsaw, Kirk reported on the deportations of Jews to concentration camps.  Despite his efforts to help Jews, Kirk was an opponent of Zionism in Palestine.

[Friedman, Saul S. No Haven for the Oppressed. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1973), p. 134. Shafir, Shlomo. “American Diplomats in Berlin (1933-1939) and their Attitude to the Nazi Persecution of the Jews.” Yad Vashem Studies, 9 (1973), pp. 71-104.  Tittmann, Harold H., Jr., Harold H. Tittman III (Ed.). Inside the Vatican of Pius XII: The Memoir of an American Diplomat During World War II. (New York: Image Books Doubleday, 2004), pp. 27-29, 33-34, 128.]


Minister Kiwimäki, Finnish Minister in Berlin, 1942-43?

[Yahil, L. “Scandinavian Countries to the Rescue of Concentration Camp Prisoners.” Yad Vashem Studies, 6 (1967), pp. 185, 190.]


Ladislaus Kluger, Swiss Consulate, Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45

Ladislaus Kluger was a member of the Swiss consulate in Budapest, Hungary.  He participated in the rescue of Jews on the Hegyeshalom death marches. 

[Asaf, Uri. Christian support for Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In Braham, Randolph L. (Ed.) Studies on the Holocaust in Hungary, pp. 65-112. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 86.]


Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, British Ambassador to Turkey, 1943-44?

British Ambassador Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen advocated for the humane treatment of Jewish refugees who landed in Palestine.  He also encouraged the Colonial Office to allow Jews who went to Turkey to be given transit passes to Palestine.  Ambassador Knatchbull-Hugessen worked closely with the US Ambassador to Turkey, Laurence A. Steinhardt, and the Papal Nuncio, Monsignor Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII) to help Jewish refugees stranded in Turkey.  Knatchbull-Hugessen’s actions to help refugees made the British Colonial Office uneasy. 

[Papers of Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt, US Library of Congress, National Archives Records Administration, and Steinhardt family papers.  Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.).  The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 641. Shaw, Stanford J. Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey’s Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945. (New York: New York University Press, 1993), pp. 282, 302. Wasserstein, Bernard. Britain and the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 129-130, 142, 214.  Friling, Tuvia, translated by Ora Cummings. Arrows in the Dark: David Ben-Gurion, the Yishuv Leadership, and Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust (Vols. 1 and 2). (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005).]


Father Köhler, Volunteer for Papal Nuncio, Budapest and Hegyeshalom, Hungary, 1944-45

Father Köhler was a Lazarist Catholic priest.  Father Köhler, working with the Ujváry group, fought to save the lives of Jewish deportees at the Hungarian border town of Hegyeshalom. Köhler filled out blank apostolic safe-conducts for Jewish deportees and sought their release. Köhler, along with Ujváry, Kiss and Biro, fought for and obtained the release of 4,700 Jews who were put on trucks and returned to Budapest.  Father Köhler was in constant danger from the Arrow Cross party, who called him “a servant of the Jewish Pope.” 

[Vatican (Holy See). Actes et documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. 12 vols. (1966-1981). Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981). Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948), pp. 373-374. Rosenfeld, Harvey. Raoul Wallenberg, Angel of Rescue: Heroism and Torment in the Gulag. (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books), chapter 5.]


Karl “Charles” Kolb, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), stationed in Romania, 1943-1945

Karl “Charles” Kolb was the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) representative stationed in Romania in 1943-1945.  He was sent to Bucharest in November 1943 by the Red Cross.  He made numerous inspections of Jewish conditions in Transnistria and brought relief and assistance to Jewish survivors of actions there.  In the spring of 1944, he attempted to organize and evacuation and rescue of the surviving Jews to Palestine.  This evacuation escape route was planned to be through the Black Sea to Turkey.  Kolb was helped in the planning by the Romanian Red Cross, Jewish relief organizations, the Swiss minister in Romania René de Weck, and the American War Refugee board.  Together, they provided food, medical supplies and other relief for Romanian refugees.

[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 346, 349-350, 352.  Favez, Jean-Claude.  Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 52, 110-115, 203-215, 243, 250. Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 1231. Vago, Bela. “Political and Diplomatic Activities for the Rescue of the Jews of Northern Transylvania.” Yad Vashem Studies, 6 (1967), pp. 167, 170. Reitlinger, Gerald. The Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945. (New York: The Beechhurst Press, 1953), pp. 409-410.  Levin, Nora. The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry, 1933-1945. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1968), p. 587. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust.  (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 161-162, 166, 169, 170, 172. Lavi, T. Rumanian Jewry in World War II: Fight for Survival. (Jerusalem, 1965). Hebrew.  Lavi, T. (Ed.). Rumania, Vol. 1.  In Pinkas Hakehillot, Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities. (Jerusalem, 1969). Hebrew. Lavi, T. “Documents on the struggle of Rumanian Jewry for its rights during the Second World War.” Yad Vashem Studies, 4 (1960), 306-307.  Dworzecki, Meir, “The International Red Cross and its Policy Vis-à-Vis the Jews in Ghettos and Concentration Camps in Nazi-Occupied Europe,” in Gutman, Y., and E. Zuroff (Eds.). Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust: Proceedings of the Second Yad Vashem International Historical Conference, Jerusalem, 3-11 April, 1974. (Jerusalem, 1977), pp. 100-101.]


Fritz Kolbe, German Diplomat

Fritz Kolbe was a spy and an asset for the US Office of Strategic Services during World War II.  He also had saved Jews by issuing them various documents.


Paul Komor, Honorary Consul for Hungary in Shanghai, China, 1938-1941

Before December 1941, Paul Komor held the title of Honorary Consul General for Hungary in Shanghai.  In 1938, when the first Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust arrived in Shanghai from Germany and Austria, Komor co-founded the International Committee for European Immigrants (IC).  The IC provided housing, jobs and financial assistance for the 20,000 Austrian, German and other Jewish refugees who came into Shanghai.  The IC also issued international passports to the Jews of Shanghai whose Nazi passports were confiscated or no longer valid.  These passports gave the refugees “legal” status so they could emigrate to the United States, Canada, Australia and elsewhere.  Komor was arrested by the Japanese occupation forces in Shanghai and was briefly held in jail for his activities on behalf of Jews.

[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 305, 311.  Kranzler, David. Japanese, Nazis and Jews: The Jewish Refugee Community of Shanghai, 1938-1945. (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1976), pp. 95-96, 153, 299, 350, 395-396, 417, 435-436.  See Komor Shanghai diaries in Visas for Life archives.]


Dr. Jaromir Kopecky, Czechoslovakian Minister to Switzerland

Dr. Jaromir Kopecky was the Czechoslovakian Minister to Switzerland.  He received, by a Czech courier, a copy of the Auschwitz Protocols.  He in turn passed the information along to Gerhardt Riegner and the World Jewish Congress.  Further, Kopecky tried to convince the International Red Cross to help Jews imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps by having them treated as civilian internees.

[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 440-441.  Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 713.]


Cyril Kotnik, Yugoslav Consul in Rome, 1943

Yugoslavian consul in Rome Cyril Kotnik helped the Jews of the Delegazione Assistenze Emigranti Ebrei (Jewish Emigrant Association; DELASEM).  Consul Kotnik was also active in helping Father Marie-Benoit.  Kotnik was arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo for his activities.  He died after the war from injuries inflicted on him by the Gestapo while in prison.  On April 17, 1955, he was posthumously given a special gold medal by the Hebrew Union of Italy. 

[Waagenaar, Sam. The Pope’s Jews. (La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishers, 1974), pp. 391, 405. Morley, John. Vatican Diplomacy and the Jews during the Holocaust, 1939-1943. (New York: Ktav, 1980), p. 184. Leboucher, Fernande. Translated by J. F. Bernard. Incredible Mission. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969).]


Krüger, German Consul

German consul Krüger provided exit visas to Palestinian Jews who were trapped in Denmark.  They went to Sweden, then to Palestine through Russia and Turkey.

[Margolinsky, cited in Yahil.  Yahil, Leni. The Rescue of Danish Jewry: Test of a Democracy. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1969), pp. 199, 480 Fn 11.  Sapir. Copenhagen on the Day of the German Invasion.]



Dr. Julius Kuhl, Polish Consul in Bern, Switzerland, 1938-45

Consul Dr. Julius Kuhl was born to a prominent Jewish family in Sanok, Poland.  Kuhl issued thousands of protective visas and passports to Jews from the Polish embassy in Bern, Switzerland, 1938-45.  Kuhl worked with help and encouragement from Polish ambassador Alexander Lados.  Both Kuhl and Lados gave visas to a number of Jewish relief and rescue agencies working out of Europe.  These precious papers enabled Jews to remain in Switzerland or emigrate to the United States, Canada, South America, Africa, Palestine and other countries. 

[Friedenson, Joseph, and David Kranzler, forward by Julius Kuhl. Heroine of Rescue: The Incredible Story of Recha Sternbuch Who Saved Thousands from the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, 1984). Kranzler, David. Thy Brother’s Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah, 1987), pp. 195, 200-203. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust.  (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 66-68, 78, 190, 249, 263, 265n.7, 368n.46.]


Herman Laatsman**, Head of Chancery, Dutch Embassy in Paris, France, 1940-41

Herman Laatsman** was the Head of the Chancery in the Dutch Embassy in Paris, 1940-41.  He was a courier contact between the Dutch government in exile in London and the underground in the Netherlands.  He provided Jewish refugees with illegal passports that enabled them to escape Nazi-occupied France.  He was also responsible for saving downed American pilots by issuing them false passports.  He worked with the Dutch-Paris Rescue Network.  In 1941, Nazis ordered the closure of the consulate.  Laatsman was betrayed and was deported to several concentration camps.  His 11-year old son, arrested with his father, disappeared.

[De Jong, Het Koninkrijk, VII/S 894-895, IX pp. 543, 549, 552-554; Ford, 1999; Gutman, 2004; Moore, 2010; see also Johan Weidner Rescue Network]


Alexander Lados, Polish Ambassador to Switzerland, 1938-45

Ambassador Lados approved the issuing of thousands of protective Polish passports and visas to Jews stranded in Switzerland, 1938-45.  He specifically approved the work of Dr. Julius Kuhl to issue passports through the embassy in Bern.  In addition, Lados persuaded the London-based Polish government-in-exile to provide money and relief to Polish Jews interned in Swiss camps. 

[Friedenson, Joseph, and David Kranzler, forward by Julius Kuhl. Heroine of Rescue: The Incredible Story of Recha Sternbuch Who Saved Thousands from the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, 1984). Kranzler, David. Thy Brother’s Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah, 1987). Kranzler, David. Thy Brother’s Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah, 1987), pp. 190, 201-203. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust.  (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 78, 249.]


Honorary Consul Langebach (first name unknown), represented Columbia in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1939?

Issued 275 visas in one afternoon to Columbia.


Dr. Valdemar Langlet* and Nina Langlet,* Swedish Red Cross Delegate in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45

On June 11, 1944, Carl Danielsson, Swedish Minister in Budapest, requested the Hungarian government allow the Swedish Red Cross to join the Hungarian Red Cross in feeding and housing thousands of orphaned Jewish children.  Dr. Langlet launched a humanitarian campaign immediately, working with the Hungarian Red Cross.  They also set up a children’s home in Budapest.  Langlet and his wife, Nina, issued and distributed Swedish protective passes to Hungarian Jews, which prevented them from being deported or murdered by the Arrow Cross or Nazis.  They worked with many Jewish volunteers.  Valdemar and Nina Langlet were declared Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel in 1965.

[Langlet, Valdemar. Verk och dagar i Budapest (Work and Days in Budapest). (Stockholm: Wahlstrom & Widstrand, 1946).  Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 705, 1050, 1052, 1085, 1088. Asaf, Uri. Christian support for Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In Braham, Randolph L. (Ed.) Studies on the Holocaust in Hungary, pp. 65-112. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), pp. 88-89. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948), pp. 275-276, 283, 383. Koblik, Steven. The Stones Cry Out: Sweden’s Response to the Persecution of the Jews, 1933-1945. (New York: Holocaust Library, 1988), pp. 68-71, 107, 161-162, 239-241, 258-260. Skoglund, Elizabeth R. A Quiet Courage: Per Anger, Wallenberg’s Co-Liberator of Hungarian Jews. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1997), p. 59.]


Sigfried Lanz, Switzerland

We have no information on Swiss Consul Lanz.  Information was requested from the Swiss Task Force.


D. F. W. van Lennep, Dutch Representative of the Consul in Marseilles, 1940

D. F. W. van Lennep was a member of the Dutch lower nobility who was in Cannes when the war broke out.  Lennep went to Paris and offered his services to the Dutch mission in Paris.  (Earlier he had worked for the Dutch mission in Berlin.)  He became the representative in Vichy France for Mr. van Harinxma, and the representative of the Dutch government Commissioner for Fugitives, van Lidth de Geude. 

[This information was supplied by the Dutch Foreign Ministry.]


Jose de Lequerica, First Secretary at the Spanish Embassy in Paris, 1939-41

[Avni, Haim. Spain, the Jews and Franco. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1982).]


Rui Vieira Lisboa, Portuguese Consul in Toulouse, France, 1943

In November 1943, Rui Vieira Lisboa, the Portuguese consul in Toulouse, France, asked Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar for permission to evacuate Jews from southern France.  He was granted permission and 47 Jewish refugees made their way to the Spanish border.

[Letter from Rui Vieira Lisboa to Salazar, October 11, 1943, AHD, 2o. P. A. 50, M. 40.  Rui Vieira Lisboa to Pinto Ferreira (Vichy), July 27, 1944, AHD, 2o. P. A. 50, M. 40. Cited in Milgram, Avraham. “The Bounds of Neutrality: Portugal and the Repatriation of its Jewish Nationals.” Yad Vashem Studies, 31 (2003), pp. 201-244.]


Lai Sai Lo, Chinese Diplomat in Milan, Italy, 1939-?

This diplomat issued visas to Austrian Jewish families.  There is a copy of a visa issued to a Jewish family that states:  “Vu au Consulat de Chine à Milan pour la Lombardie, pour se rendre en Chine, Milan le 10 Febrier 1939, Le Consul.”  There is a Chinese signature chop with the name Lai Sai Lo and a seal of the Consulat de la Republique de Chine a Milan. 

[Kranzler, David. Thy Brother’s Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah, 1987), p. 195 (see also footnote 4).]


Giovanni Luciolli, Italian Vice Consul, Paris, 1941-1942

Italian Vice Consul Giovanni Luciolli was stationed in Paris in 1941-1942.  He intervened with German authorities to free Italian Jews who had been arrested there.  He provided these Jews with papers that were needed to secure their release.  He got into direct confrontations with German authorities over the issue of protection of Italian Jewish property in Paris.  Luciolli and Orlandini helped to persuade the Italian Foreign Ministry to repatriate Italian Jews in France, despite objections from the Italian Interior Ministry. 

[Carpi, 1994, pp. 32, 34-35, 54-61, 64, 259n.40, 263n.20.]


Sarolta Lukács, Deputy Chairman of the Hungarian Red Cross, Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45

Sarolta Lukács, the Deputy Chairman of the Hungarian Red Cross in Budapest, 1944-45, worked closely with Dr. Valdemar and Nina Langlet of the Swedish Red Cross. 

[See Langlet, Valdemar. Verk och dagar i Budapest (Work and Days in Budapest). (Stockholm: Wahlstrom & Widstrand, 1946). Asaf, Uri. Christian support for Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In Braham, Randolph L. (Ed.) Studies on the Holocaust in Hungary, pp. 65-112. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 89. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948).]


Luis Luti, Argentine Ambassador to Germany, 1942-1944

Luis Luti was the Argentine Ambassador in Berlin from March 1942 to January 1944.  Luti reported extensively to the Argentine government on the persecution of Jews in Germany and Poland.  He sent detailed reports on the deportation and mass murder of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto.  Luti’s report in June 1943 confirmed that Jews were being deported to the gas chambers of Treblinka and murdered.  In September 1943, Luti tried to gain exemptions for “Argentine citizens of Jewish race.”  He was able to get “the regular ration cards for food and clothing” for Jews.

[Feierstein, Daniel and Miguel Galante. “Argentina and the Holocaust: The conceptions and policies of Argentine diplomacy, 1933-1945.” Yad Vashem Studies, 27 (1999), 171-172, 179-181, 195-196, 198.]


Major Lüthi, Swiss military attaché in Helsinki, Finland, 1943

Major Lüthi was the Swiss military attaché in Helsinki, Finland.  He sent a report to officials in Bern on the murder of 16,000 Jews in Eastern Europe.  This report was based on the confession of a perpetrator who was involved in the murder.  The individual described both mass shootings and the murder of Jews by “asphyxiation with carbon monoxide gas.”  The report also mentioned a high-ranking German officer who confirmed the reports of mass execution.  This report was suppressed by Swiss officials and not acted upon. 

[Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.).  The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 620-621.]


Charles “Carl” Lutz,* Consul for Switzerland in Budapest, Hungary, 1942-45, and Gertrud Lutz,* Wife of Consul Carl Lutz, Budapest, Hungary

Carl Lutz (1895-1975) was the first neutral diplomat in Budapest to rescue Jews. He is credited with inventing the Schutzbrief (protective letter) for Jewish refugees in Budapest.  After March 19, 1944, the Germans occupied Hungary and the new government of Döme Sztojay closed the Hungarian borders to Jewish emigration. In tough negotiations with the Nazis and the Hungarian government, Lutz obtained permission to issue protective letters to 8,000 Hungarian Jews for emigration to Palestine.  Using a ruse and interpreting the 8,000 “units” not as persons but as families, he and his staff issued tens of thousands of additional “protective letters."  He established 76 Swiss safe houses throughout Budapest and, with the help of his wife Gertrud, liberated Jews from deportation centers and death marches.  In 1942-43, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency for Palestine, Lutz had helped 10,000 Jewish children and young people to emigrate to Palestine.  Lutz worked with hundreds of Jewish volunteers who helped him process the protective letters and distribute them throughout Budapest.  Lutz was told that as long as he stayed in Budapest, his protectees would survive.  He is credited by Jewish relief agencies with saving 62,000 Jews from the Nazi Holocaust.  Carl Lutz was made Righteous Among the Nations by Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Authority in 1965.  In addition, he has been declared an honorary citizen of the State of Israel.  Carl Lutz died in 1975 at the age of 80.

[Tschuy, Theo. Carl Lutz und die Juden von Budapest. (Zurich: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 1995). Tschuy, Theo. Dangerous Diplomacy. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000).  Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 840, 849, 899, 978, 979, 1079-1082. Asaf, Uri. Christian support for Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In Braham, Randolph L. (Ed.) Studies on the Holocaust in Hungary, pp. 65-112. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), pp. 89-90. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948), pp. 227, 276-277, 282-284, 355, 366-369, 371. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust.  (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 189, 194, 197-198, 200, 206, 212. Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 258, 690, 703, 755, 924-925, 1232, 1251, 1444. Lévai, Jenö, translated by Frank Vajda. Raoul Wallenberg: His Remarkable Life, Heroic Battles and the Secret of his Mysterious Disappearance. (Melbourne, 1988, originally published in Hungarian in 1948), p. 163.]


Douglas MacKillop, British Chargé d’Affaires, Bern, Switzerland

Douglas MacKillop was the British Chargé d’Affaires in Bern, Switzerland.  He persuaded the Swiss foreign minister Pilet-Golaz to proceed with the plan to rescue Jews under the Anglo-American guarantees.

[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 1281 fn 103.]


Giuseppe Agenore Magno, Honorary Consul for Portugal in Milan, Italy, 1941

Giuseppe Agenore Magno was from a prominent, wealthy Neapolitan family.  He was head of the Italian Immigration Service in Buenos Aires before the war.  He spoke Portuguese fluently and had a great appreciation of Portuguese culture and literature.  He even translated a number of Portuguese works into Italian.  Magno was appointed Honorary Consul for Portugal to Milan, Italy, in 1934 by Alfredo Casanova, the Portuguese Consul in Genoa.  Magno issued unauthorized visas to Jewish refugees in Milan.  He was reprimanded and removed from office by the Portuguese Foreign Ministry for issuing these visas.  Magno, in spite of being relieved of his position, stayed at his posted and operated the consulate until he died on February 5, 1947.

[Milgram, Avraham. “Portugal, the Consuls, and the Jewish Refugees, 1938-1941.” Yad Vashem Studies, 27 (1999), pp. 151-153.]


Manuel Malbrán, Argentine Ambassador to Italy, 1938-39

Manuel Malbrán was the Argentine Ambassador to Italy in 1938-39.  Ambassador Malbrán reported to the Argentine Foreign Ministry regarding anti-Semitic persecution of Jews by the Italian government.  The Argentine Foreign Ministry declined to intervene on behalf of Argentine Jews in Italy.  Malbrán continued to request permission to protect Argentine Jewish property in Italy.  As a result of his repeated requests, he was granted limited powers to protect Argentine Jewish property.

[Feierstein, Daniel and Miguel Galante. “Argentina and the Holocaust: The conceptions and policies of Argentine diplomacy, 1933-1945.” Yad Vashem Studies, 27 (1999), 195-201.]


Lieutenant Francesco Malfatti di Montetretto, Consul in Chambéry, France, 1943

On September 3, 1943, Lieutenant Francesco Malfatti di Montetretto was appointed Italian Consul in Chambéry, France.  He aided Jews while the Italian Army and diplomatic service was withdrawing from southern France after Italians signed the armistice on September 8, 1944.

[Carpi, Daniel. Between Mussolini and Hitler: The Jews and the Italian Authorities in France and Tunisia. (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1994), pp. 147-149, 173, 183, 295n.27.]


George Mandel-Mantello, Honorary First Secretary for El Salvador in Geneva, 1942-45

George Mandel was born into an orthodox Jewish family in Romania in 1901.  Because of his business contacts, he was appointed honorary consul of El Salvador in Geneva in 1941.  As early as 1942, George Mandel-Mantello began issuing Salvadoran citizenship papers and documents to Jews in Nazi occupied Europe from his offices in Geneva.  Mantello worked closely with Jewish organizations and neutral legations to develop an elaborate network to distribute these life-saving papers, especially in Hungary.  Many of these were blank forms that could be filled out by the recipients.  Mantello spent thousands of dollars of his own money covering the costs of issuing these life-saving documents.  Mantello also was largely responsible for the widespread dissemination of the Auschwitz Protocols in Europe.  For this, he was briefly jailed by Swiss government officials for violating Swiss neutrality.

[Kranzler, David. The Man Who Stopped the Trains to Auschwitz George Mantello, El Salvador, and Switzerland’s Finest Hour. (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000). Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 712-715, 729, 951, 978-979, 1079, 1109, 1120. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948), pp. 228-229. Kranzler, David. Thy Brother’s Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah, 1987), pp. 203-215. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust.  (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 189-191, 249, 254.]


Vittoriano Manfredi, Italian Vice Consul in Grenoble, France, 1943

Vittoriano Manfredi was the Italian Vice Consul in Grenoble, France, in 1943.  He prevented the roundup and deportation of more than 100 Jews.  Manfredi did this by informing the local Italian general, who blocked the tracks of the deportation train and negotiated the release of Jews bound for Auschwitz. 

[Film: Righteous Enemy, 1982.]


Florian Manoliu,* Romanian Diplomat in Bern, Switzerland

Romanian diplomat Florian Manoliu worked with the other diplomats in saving Jews from deportation from Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45.  He worked to distribute various protective papers, including those of George Mandel Mantello.  Manoliu distributed the Auschwitz Protocols to a number of Jewish representatives in Switzerland.  He was awarded Righteous Among the Nations status in 2001. 

[Kranzler, David. The Man Who Stopped the Trains to Auschwitz George Mantello, El Salvador, and Switzerland’s Finest Hour. (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000), pp. 82-94, 176-177, 283n.i, 183-184. Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 712, 1120.]


Monsignor (Abbot) Giuseppe Ramiro Marcone, Vatican Representative in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, 1942-43?

Monsignor Giuseppe Ramiro Marcone, the Vatican representative in Zagreb, intervened via diplomatic channels to halt deportations of Jews.  His efforts initially were to no avail.

[Carpi, Daniel. "The Rescue of Jews in the Italian Zone of Occupied Croatia." In Rescue Attempts During the Holocaust. Proceedings of the Second Yad Vashem International Historical Conference, edited by Y. Gutman & E. Zuroff. (Jerusalem, 1977), pp. 477, 490. Morley, John. Vatican Diplomacy and the Jews during the Holocaust, 1939-1943. (New York: Ktav, 1980), pp. 149-165, 202.  Tittmann, Harold H., Jr., Harold H. Tittman III (Ed.). Inside the Vatican of Pius XII: The Memoir of an American Diplomat During World War II. (New York: Image Books Doubleday, 2004), p. 51.]


Constanin Mares, Consul for Romania in Vienna, Austria

Like Radu Flondor, Mares issued visas and passports to Austrian Jews that saved them from Nazi persecution and deportation.


Simón Margel, Clerk in the Consulate General of Argentina in Budapest and Employee of the Swedish Legation in Budapest

Simón Margel was a Polish Jew and a refugee in Hungary who worked as a Clerk in the Argentine Consulate General in Budapest.  After the Nazi persecutions of Jews began in 1944, Margel requested permission to immigrate to Argentina.  The Consul General at the time refused to give Margel protection or immigration documentation.  Margel then volunteered as an employee of the Swedish legation in Budapest.  From his position in the Swedish legation, he issued more than 250 diplomatic protective papers to “presumed Argentine Jews.”  The Argentine Foreign Ministry later condemned Margel for “overstepping his authority.”

[Feierstein, Daniel and Miguel Galante. “Argentina and the Holocaust: The conceptions and policies of Argentine diplomacy, 1933-1945.” Yad Vashem Studies, 27 (1999), 188-189.]


De Maricourt, French Chargé d’Affaires to Vichy France

[Mazower, Mark. Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-1944. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993).]


Mihai Marina, Romanian Diplomat in Nagyvard, Northern Transylvania

Mihai Marina was a Romanian diplomat who visited the various counties of Northern Transylvania to acquaint himself with the ghettoization and deportation process.

[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 906-907.  Marina, Mihai. “Nu puteam ramine impasibili!” [We could not remain impassive!] Magazin Istoric [Historical Magazine), Bucharest, no. 67, June 1976, pp. 39-41.  See also pp. 37-38.]


Monsignor Mario, Vatican Legate

Monsignor Mario was a Vatican legate to Bratislava, Slovakia.  After a copy of the Auschwitz Protocol was sent to the Vatican, Mario was sent to Bratislava to interview the Auschwitz escapees and verify these accounts.  He interviewed both Rudolph Vrba and Modwitz, both escapees.  Monsignor Mario then sent a report to Pope Pius XII.  Some historians believe this led to Pope Pius’ direct appeal to Admiral Horthy of Hungary to stop the deportations in the spring of 1944.

[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 714-715, 1067.]


Roland Marti, International Red Cross, stationed in Berlin, Germany.

Roland Marti was the International Red Cross representative stationed in Berlin, Germany.  He was active throughout the war in trying to help Jewish refugees and internees in concentration camps.  In September 1942, Marti petitioned the German government to treat Jews as “civilian internees,” who could then be helped by the Red Cross under the rules of the Geneva Convention.

[Favez, Jean-Claude.  Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 7, 26-27, 34-38, 40-43, 52, 58, 60, 65-70, 73, 96-97, 102, 145, 148, 151-152, 159, 161-164, 251-260. Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 1230-1231.]


Caeiro da Mata, Portuguese Ambassador to Vichy, 1942?

Caeiro da Mata, the Portuguese Ambassador to Vichy, worked with the Portuguese Consul General António Alves, who headed the consulate in Paris, to save Jews from deportation at the hands of the Nazis.  Mata, in a report to the Portuguese Foreign Ministry, stated “No Portuguese Jew has been found in detention in a concentration camp.  No Jew has been deported to the East, and no Jew has been required to wear the [yellow] patch like the rest of the Jews.”  Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar and the Portuguese Foreign Ministry eventually approved the Consul’s protection of Jews who held Portuguese nationality.

[Milgram, Avraham. “The Bounds of Neutrality: Portugal and the Repatriation of its Jewish Nationals.” Yad Vashem Studies, 31 (2003), pp. 201-244.  Report from António Alves to Foreign Ministry, AHD, 2o P. A. 50, M. 40.  Report from Consul General in Paris, António Alves to Foreign Ministry, “The Question of the Portuguese Levantine Jews in France,” January 1943, AHD, 2o P. A. 50, M. 40, pp. 5, 14.]


William MacDonald, American Red Cross in Poland

William MacDonald was the American Red Cross representative in Poland.

[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 85.]


Lincoln MacVeagh, US Ambassador to Greece, Athens (later relocated to Cairo, Egypt)

The US Ambassador to Greece, Lincoln MacVeagh, sent numerous humanitarian reports regarding the condition of Greek Jews and their persecution.

[Matsas, Michael. The Illusion of Safety: The Story of the Greek Jews During World War II. (New York: Pella Publishing Co.1997), p. 21, 67, 95, 98, 411.  Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York.]


James Grover McDonald, League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

McDonald became the Chairman of the Foreign Policy Association in New York in 1919.  He served the Association until 1933.  At that time, McDonald was appointed as head of the newly-created League of Nations Office of High Commissioner for Refugees in Germany.  His appointment as an American Commissioner to the League was ironic, since America did not belong to the world organization.  His efforts on behalf of Jewish refugees found little support in either the US State Department or the British or French Foreign Offices.  Throughout the war, McDonald supported the rescue of refugees through immigration to the United States.  These policies were continually opposed by the State Department.  After the war, he was appointed the first American Ambassador to Israel, a position he held until 1951. 

[Breitman, Richard, Advocate for the Doomed, 2007.  London, L. Whitehall and the Jews, 1933-1948: British immigration policy, Jewish refugees and the Holocaust, pp. 83-84. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 204, 455, 954-956, 1187, 1237. Feingold, Henry. The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1944. (New Brunswick, NJ: (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1970), pp. 14, 18, 25-26, 31, 52, 76, 80, 92, 127, 139, 142, 144-147, 152, 156, 160, 162-164, 213, 286.  Wyman, David S. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945. (New York: Pantheon, 1984), pp. 45-46, 315. Morse, Arthur D. While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. (New York: Random House, 1967), pp. 148, 160, 167-168, 171, 187-190, 205, 209, 211, 295-296, 303. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust.  (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 69, 113, 248, 250.  His papers were donated to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.]


Count Quinto Mazzolini

[Carpi, Daniel. Between Mussolini and Hitler: The Jews and the Italian Authorities in France and Tunisia. (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1994), pp. 27-28.]


Wilhelm Melchers, German Diplomat of the Near East Desk, Political Division, German Foreign Office, 1942-1943

Wilhelm Melchers, of the Near East Desk of the Political Division of the German Foreign Office, saved Palestinian Jews in German hands from being deported by British authorities in Palestine.  In Paris in 1942, he intervened on behalf of 2,400 Turkish Jews who were to be deported.  Initially, these Jews were not protected by Turkish authorities in Paris.  Melchers argued to the German government that these Jews posed no security risk and that their deportation would produce bad publicity against Germany in the Turkish press.  Wilhelm Melchers single-handedly thwarted the deportation of these Turkish Jews.  Later, the Turkish government intervened on behalf of these Jews. 

[Browning, Christopher R. Browning. The Final Solution and the German Foreign Office: A Study of Referat D III of Abteilung Deutschland 1940-43. (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1978), pp. 155-156. Levine, Paul A. From Indifference to Activism: Swedish Diplomacy and the Holocaust: 1938-1944. (Uppsala, Sweden: 1998), p. 158.]


Dr. Aristides de Sousa Mendes,* Portuguese Consul General in Bordeaux, France, 1938 - June 1941

Aristides De Sousa Mendes was from a prominent Portuguese family.  His father had been of nobility and served in the Portuguese supreme court.  For a short period, his brother, Cesar, had been the Foreign Minister of Portugal.  Mendes was a career diplomat. He was the Consul General for Portugal in Bordeaux, France.  Between June 17 and 19, 1940, he issued thousands of life-saving Portuguese visas for Jews and other refugees.  Mendes saved the entire royal Habsburg family, including the crown prince and Empress Zita.  In addition, he saved the entire Belgian cabinet in exile.  Mendes personally conducted hundreds of Jewish refugees across a border checkpoint on the Spanish frontier.  All of his life saving activities were done against the orders and policies of Portugal.  He was fired by his government and lost all of his property.  He died in poverty in Lisbon in 1954.  In November of 1995, Portugal posthumously restored his career and awarded him a special medal for saving lives. De Sousa Mendes was declared Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel in 1967. 

[Fralon, José-Alain, translated by Peter Graham. A Good Man in Evil Times: Aristides de Sousa Mendes – The Unknown Hero Who Saved Countless Lives in World War II. (New York: Viking, 2000). Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Spared Lives: The Actions of Three Portuguese Diplomats in World War II. (Portugal: Diplomatic Institute, 2000). Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 1280, 1381-1382. Milgram, Avraham. “Portugal, the Consuls, and the Jewish Refugees, 1938-1941.” Yad Vashem Studies, 27 (1999), pp. 123-155.]


Numan Menemencioglu, Turkey, Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1942-1944

[Shaw, Stanford J. Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey’s Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945. (New York: New York University Press, 1993), pp. 78, 125, 127-128, 282, 295-296, 331.]


Captain Lucillo Merci, Italian Army, Stationed at Italian Consulate in Salonika, Greece, 1942-43?

Captain Lucillo Merci was the military liaison stationed at the Italian consulate in Salonika, Greece.  On numerous occasions, he rescued Jews by moving them across the border from the German to the Italian zone of occupation.  Merci would also go into German detention camps armed with Italian citizenship papers provided by consular officials.  He would then have Jews released to his custody.  He worked closely with other members of the consulate to rescue Jews.  Merci’s diary of his experiences in Salonika were published by Yad Vashem in Israel.

[Duman, Marion and Judy Krausz (Eds.). Compiled, translated and annotated with an introduction by Irith Dublon-Kenbel. German Foreign Office Documents on the Holocaust in Greece (1837-1944).  (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2007). Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 614. Carpi, 1990, p. 614. Poliakov & Sabille, 1955, pp. 156-157. Steinberg, 1990, p. 99. Molho, M., & J. Nehama. The Destruction of Greek Jewry, 1941-1945. (Jerusalem, 1965). In Hebrew. Rochlitz, Joseph. “Excerpts from the Salonika Diary of Lucillo Merci (February-August 1943).” Yad Vashem Studies, 18 (1987), pp. 293-323.]


George Strausser Messersmith, US Consul General in Berlin, 1930-1934, Vienna, 1934, and Assistant Secretary of State

George S. Messersmith was the US Consul General (First Secretary) at the US embassy in Berlin, Germany, from 1930-1934.  He was a very early critic of Hitler and the Nazis.  In the spring of 1934, he was posted as US Minister to Vienna.  After his appointment in Vienna, Messersmith was appointed Assistant Secretary of State, where he was active in opposing the State Department’s appeasement of Hitler.  Messersmith was consistently skeptical of Hitler’s declarations of peace.  He advised Washington against cooperation with Hitler and Germany.  He constantly protested the German treatment of Jewish and Austrian citizens.  He often interceded on behalf of German Jews.  Messersmith was among the most outspoken Anti-Nazis in the US consul corps.

[Shafir, Shlomo. “American Diplomats in Berlin (1933-1939) and their Attitude to the Nazi Persecution of the Jews.” Yad Vashem Studies, 9 (1973), pp. 72-73, 76-80, 85, 96, 102-103. Shafir, Shlomo. “George S. Messersmith: An Anti-Nazi Diplomat’s View of the German Jewish Crisis.” Jewish Social Studies.]


Dumitru Metta, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Romanian Legation in France, 1940-42

Between 1940 and 1942, Metta issued more than 1,500 Romanian passports for Jews living in Vichy France.


Bernardo Rolland de Miota, Spain, Consul General in Paris, 1941-43

In August 1941, Rolland actively intervened in the cases of 14 Jews who were deported to the Drancy concentration camp.  At the same time, he embarked on a dangerous mission to transfer 2,000 Jews from the Drancy transit camp to safety in Morocco.  Throughout the war, he denounced Nazi persecution of Jews.  By September 1943, Rolland was in part responsible for the escape of thousands of French Jews to Spain.  

[Avni, Haim. Spain, the Jews and Franco. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1982), pp. 84-88, 93, 128-129, 130, 134-139, 180.  Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 1393. Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.).  The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 602. Spanish Foreign Ministry. “Spanish Diplomats During the Holocaust.” (Downloaded from http://www.mae.es on 3/21/04.)]


Otto Carl Mohr, Danish Minister to Germany, Berlin, Germany

Otto Carl Mohr, Danish Minister to Germany, sought to protect Jews who were deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp.

[Swedish Foreign Office, The Swedish Relief Expedition to Germany 1945: Prelude and Negotiations [Stockholm, 1956], White Book, 1956; Persson, 2009, pp. 87, 104-107, 146, 148, 166-167, 177, 192; Yahil, 1969]


Benjamino Molho, Deputy Ambassador to Spain in Yugoslavia, 1942-1943?

Benjamino Molho, the Deputy Ambassador to Yugoslavia who was posted in Belgrade, provided Spanish protective papers for Jews trying to escape Nazi deportation to the concentration camps.

[Alexy, Trudy. The Mezuzah in the Madonna’s Foot, pp. 167. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).  Oral history by author with Molho.]


Eitel Friedrich Möllhausen, German Acting Consul General in Rome, 1943

Eitel Friedrich Möllhausen became the German Acting Consul General in Rome, Italy, after the Consul General had been seriously injured in an automobile accident. Möllhausen thwarted a plan by Himmler to deport all of Rome’s Jews in September 1943.  Möllhausen understood that the deportation of the Jews would mean that they would be murdered.  Möllhausen approached German Field Marshall Kesselring to help him to stop the planned deportation.  Kesselring supported Möllhausen.  As a result, many Jews were spared deportation. Möllhausen even wired German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop personally to try to rescind the order to deport the Jews of Rome. Möllhausen used the term “liquidate” in his personal telegram to Ribbentrop.  Ribbentrop was furious over Möllhausen’s use of the word “liquidate,” and reprimanded Möllhausen for his indiscretion. 

[Katz, Robert. Black Sabbath: A Journey Through a Crime Against Humanity. (Toronto: MacMillan, 1969), pp. 53-65, 135-139. Möllhausen, Eitel Friedrich. Die Gebrochene Achse [The Broken Axis].  (Luxembourg: Alpha Verlag, 1949). Möllhausen, Eitel Friedrich. Il giuoco è fatto! (Florence, 1951).  Rahn, Rudolph. Ruheloses Leben: Aufzeichnungen und Erinnerungen [Restless Life: Reflections and Memories]. (Dusseldorf: Diederichs Verlag, 1949). Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 1301. Michaelis, Meir. Mussolini and the Jews: German-Italian Relations and the Jewish Question in Italy, 1922-1945. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), pp. 351, 354, 362-366, 369.  Zimmerman, Joshua D., Jews in Italy under Falist and Nazi Rule, 1922-1945, Cambridge University Press, NY, 2005, pp. 224-242.]


Dr. Morsen, International Committee of the Red Cross Delegate to the Swiss Legation in Paris, 1941

Dr. Morsen was the International Committee of the Red Cross delegate to the Swiss Legation in Paris in 1941. 

Dr. Morsen and Dr. Roland Marti, who was the Berlin delegate of the ICRC, went on an extensive inspection trip to determine the conditions in French concentration camps Beaune-la-Rolande and Pithiviers.  They were appalled by the conditions in the camps.  They were able to provide aid to Jewish prisoners in these camps and worked to facilitate emigration for refugees out of France.

[Favez, Jean-Claude.  Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).]


Mark Mosseri, Italian Consulate in Salonika, Greece, 1943

Mosseri helped save Jews at the Italian consulate in Salonika, Greece.  He worked under Consul Generals Zamboni and Castrucci. 

[Duman, Marion and Judy Krausz (Eds.). Compiled, translated and annotated with an introduction by Irith Dublon-Kenbel. German Foreign Office Documents on the Holocaust in Greece (1837-1944).  (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2007).  Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 614. Carpi, Daniel (Ed.). Italian Diplomatic Documents on the History of the Holocaust in Greece (1941-1943). (Tel Aviv: Diaspora Research Institute, 1999).  Carpi, Daniel. "Notes on the History of the Jews in Greece during the Holocaust Period: The Attitude of the Italians (1941-1943)." In Festschrift in Honor of Dr. George S. Wise, H. Ben-Shahar et al., Eds., pp. 25-62. (Tel Aviv, 1981).]


Miguel Angel de Muguiro, Spain, Minister (Ambassador) in Budapest, 1944

Minister Muguiro was openly critical of the Hungarian government’s anti-Semitic policy.  After the German occupation of Hungary, Muguiro protested the persecution and deportation of Jews.  Muguiro’s outspoken criticism was a continuing source of tension between Spain and Hungary.  As a result, Muguiro was recalled from Hungary. 

[Avni, Haim. Spain, the Jews and Franco. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1982), pp. 170-171. Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981). Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Spared Lives: The Actions of Three Portuguese Diplomats in World War II. (Portugal: Diplomatic Institute, 2000). Spanish Foreign Ministry. “Spanish Diplomats During the Holocaust.” (Downloaded from http://www.mae.es on 3/21/04.)]


Odd Nansen, Nansenhjaelp, Norway, 1942?

Odd Nansen, of the committee of Nansenhjaelp, organized a rescue of 1,700 Norwegian Jews.  This operation was a joint action between Sweden and Norway.  The Nansenhjaelp committee also helped rescue a number of refugees fleeing the Nazis from Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland.  Many of these refugees were Jews.  In January 1942, Nansen was arrested by the Nazi occupying government of Norway and was held in a concentration camp.  He was later deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he survived until liberation.

[Friedman, Philip. Their Brothers’ Keepers: The Christian Heroes and Heroines Who Helped the Oppressed Escape the Nazi Terror. (New York: Holocaust Library, 1978), p. 169. Yahil, L. “Scandinavian Countries to the Rescue of Concentration Camp Prisoners.” Yad Vashem Studies, 6 (1967), pp. 191-192. Cohen, Maynard M.  A Stand Against Tyranny: Norway’s Physicians and the Nazis. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1997).]


Emilio Neri, Italian Consul General in Salonika, Greece, 1942-43?

The Italian Consul General in Salonika, Emilio Neri, saved many Jews by transferring them from the German to the Italian zone of occupation in Greece.  He put these Jews in contact with Greek railway workers who hid them in transport cars carrying freight to Athens.  In the Italian zone, Jews were given falsified identity documents.  Neri would put Jewish refugees on military convoys and would often dress them in Italian military uniforms.  Neri worked closely with an Italian officer, Captain Lucillo Merci, who would also move Jews across the border between the two zones. 

[Duman, Marion and Judy Krausz (Eds.). Compiled, translated and annotated with an introduction by Irith Dublon-Kenbel. German Foreign Office Documents on the Holocaust in Greece (1837-1944).  (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2007).  Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 614. Carpi, 1990, p. 614. Molho, M., & J. Nehama. The Destruction of Greek Jewry, 1941-1945. (Jerusalem, 1965). In Hebrew.]


Asta Nilsson, Representative of the Swedish Red Cross, Budapest, 1944-45

Asta Nilsson was a relative of King Gustav of Sweden.  In 1944, Nilsson volunteered for an extremely dangerous mission in Budapest, Hungary.  Nilsson worked with the Swedish Red Cross with Valdemar and Nina Langlet.  In Budapest, Nilsson was active in saving and protecting Jewish children.  When the Arrow Cross raided some of the children’s protected institutions, they arrested Nilsson and took her to the Arrow Cross headquarters.  She was later released with the intervention of Raoul Wallenberg. 

[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981).  Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 258, 1439. Anger, Per. Translated by David Mel Paul and Margareta Paul. With Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest: Memories of the War Years in Hungary. (New York: Holocaust Library, 1981), pp. 52, 55, 58, 78f, 80,136. Asaf, Uri. Christian support for Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In Braham, Randolph L. (Ed.) Studies on the Holocaust in Hungary, pp. 65-112. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 93. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948), pp. 364, 392. Lévai, Jenö, translated by Frank Vajda. Raoul Wallenberg: His Remarkable Life, Heroic Battles and the Secret of his Mysterious Disappearance. (Melbourne, 1988, originally published in Hungarian in 1948). Koblik, Steven. The Stones Cry Out: Sweden’s Response to the Persecution of the Jews, 1933-1945. (New York: Holocaust Library, 1988), p. 72. Skoglund, Elizabeth R. A Quiet Courage: Per Anger, Wallenberg’s Co-Liberator of Hungarian Jews. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1997), pp. 36, 38, 116.]


Sally Noach, Dutch diplomat


Raoul Nordling, Swedish Consul General in Paris, France, 1944-45

Swedish Consul General Raoul Nordling had smuggled to safety scores of French men and women, some of whom were Jewish, who were threatened with arrest by the Nazis.  Nordling was also responsible for negotiating with the German commander of Paris in 1944 to prevent him from carrying out Hitler’s order to destroy Paris. 

[Favez, Jean-Claude.  Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 260-261. Bernadotte, Folke, Count. The Fall of the Curtain: Last Days of the Third Reich. (London: Cassell, 1945), pp. 13-14. Koblik, Steven. The Stones Cry Out: Sweden’s Response to the Persecution of the Jews, 1933-1945. (New York: Holocaust Library, 1988), pp. 123, 163.  Swedish Foreign Office Archives [UDA], Stockhom; Persson, 2009.]


Clifford Norton, British Chargé d’Affaires, Warsaw, Poland

[Communication from Dr. Alastair Noble, Historian, Information Management Group, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, received 4/15/2008.]


Lennart Nylander, Legation Counsellor, Swedish Legation, Berlin, Germany

[Swedish Foreign Office Archives [UDA], Stockhom; Persson, 2009, p. 77, 83, 253]


Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, Ireland

Father O’Flaherty helped escaped prisoners of war and Jews in Rome, 1943.  He led a group that gave out false identities and hid refugees throughout Rome.

[Leboucher, Fernande. Translated by J. F. Bernard. Incredible Mission. (Garden city, NY: Doubleday, 1969).  Tittmann, Harold H., Jr., Harold H. Tittman III (Ed.). Inside the Vatican of Pius XII: The Memoir of an American Diplomat During World War II. (New York: Image Books Doubleday, 2004), pp. 97, 189-190.]


Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes, Chargé d’Affaires in British Embassy in Berlin, 1938?

Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes, Chargé d’Affaires in the British embassy in Berlin, reported to the British Foreign Office on the Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews in Berlin in November 1938. 

[Gilbert, Martin. “British government policy towards Jewish refugees (November 1938-September 1939). Yad Vashem Studies, 13 (1979), 128.  Communication from Dr. Alastair Noble, Historian, Information Management Group, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, received 4/15/2008.]


Leif Öhrvall, Sweden

[Levine, Paul A. From Indifference to Activism: Swedish Diplomacy and the Holocaust: 1938-1944. (Uppsala, Sweden: 1998), pp.141-145, 171-176.]


Ricardo Olivera, Argentine Ambassador to Germany, 1939-1942, later Ambassador to Vichy

Ricardo Olivera, the Argentine ambassador to Germany, strenuously objected to and condemned the discriminatory treatment of Jews in Germany during his tenure there from 1939 to 1940.  He sent numerous reports to the Argentine Foreign Ministry, including reports of mass deportations of German Jews to Poland.  In 1940, he became the Argentine Ambassador to Vichy.  There, he helped Argentine Jews in occupied France.  Olivera also helped Greek Jews avoid deportations and escape France.  In November 1943, the Argentine consulate in Paris, under instructions from Olivera, took steps to protect Greek Jews who were interned in French concentration camps.

[Feierstein, Daniel and Miguel Galante. “Argentina and the Holocaust: The conceptions and policies of Argentine diplomacy, 1933-1945.” Yad Vashem Studies, 27 (1999), 179, 187, 189, 190-184.]


Ivor C. Olsen, Fnancial Attaché, US Embassy, Stockholm, Sweden, War Refugee Board (WRB) Representative

[War Refugee Board Archives, FDR Library, Hyde Park, Final Report, WRB; Persson, 2009, pp. 21, 29]


Alexandru Olteanu, Romania Diplomat

Alexandru Olteanu was a Romanian diplomat who visited the various counties of Northern Transylvania to acquaint himself with the ghettoization and deportation process.

[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 912.  Marina, Mihai. “Nu puteam ramine impasibili!” [We could not remain impassive!] Magazin Istoric [Historical Magazine], Bucharest, no. 67, June 1976, pp. 39-41.  See also pp. 37-38.]


General Luis Orgaz, Spanish High Commissioner for Tangier

General Luis Orgaz, the Spanish High Commissioner for Tangier, provided more than 700 entry visas for children to immigrate to Tangier from Budapest, Hungary.  General Orgaz was persuaded to issue the visas and permit entry of the Jewish refugees to Tangiers by US Chargé d’Affaires Rives Childs and Jewish rescue activists Renée and Eva Reichmann.  The Reichmanns’ organization was called the Tangier Committee for Aid to Refugees. 

[Alexy, Trudy. The Mezuzah in the Madonna’s Foot, pp. 200-201. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993). Bianco, Anthony. The Reichmanns: Family, Faith, Fortune, and the Empire of Olympia & York. (New York: Times Books, 1997). Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 1061-1062, 1092. Kranzler, David. The Man Who Stopped the Trains to Auschwitz George Mantello, El Salvador, and Switzerland’s Finest Hour. (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000), p. 196. Kranzler, David. Thy Brother’s Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah, 1987), pp. 250-254.  Childs, Rives. Foreign Service Farewell, pp. 116-117.  Rozett, Robert. “Child Rescue in Budapest,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 2 (1987), pp. 49-59.]


Gustavo Orlandini, Italian Consul General in Paris, 1940-1942

General Gustavo Orlandini was the Italian Consul General stationed in Paris in 1940-1942.  As early as October 1940, Orlandini sought to protect the property rights of French Jews of Italian ancestry in the occupied zone.  Without authorization, Orlandini intervened with German authorities to free Italian Jews who had been arrested in Paris.  He also obtained the release of Italian Jews who had been arrested and were detained at the Drancy transit camp pending deportation to Auschwitz.  Orlandini also issued travel documents that allowed Italian Jews who would have faced almost certain death to leave France.  Eventually, many of them repatriated to Italy.  Orlandini asked the Italian foreign ministry to rule in favor of helping Italian Jews throughout France.  They replied favorably to Orlandini’s recommendations.  He also sent numerous reports to the Italian foreign ministry regarding the actions against Jews, especially as it would affect former Italian Jews.  Orlandini also protected Jews from having to wear the Star of David.

[Carpi, 1990, p. 730. Carpi, 1994, pp. 21-26, 32-37, 44, 54-62, 64, 256n.7, 261n.56. Poznanski, 2001, pp. 385-386.]


Sir Francis de’Arcy Godolphin Osborne, British Minister to the Holy See, 1942

Sir Francis de’Arcy Godolphin Osborne was the British Minister to the Holy See in 1942.  In December 1942, the British government tried to get the Vatican to condemn the Nazi genocide.  Osborne wrote to the Vatican Secretary of State:  “A policy of silence in regard to such offenses against the conscience of the world must necessarily involve a renunciation of moral leadership and a consequent atrophy of the influence and authority of the Vatican” (Gutman, 1990, p. 1137).  Osborne tried again in January 1943 and failed to get a Vatican statement condemning Nazi war crimes against Jews and others.

[Leboucher, Fernande. Translated by J. F. Bernard. Incredible Mission. (Garden city, NY: Doubleday, 1969). Morley, John. Vatican Diplomacy and the Jews during the Holocaust, 1939-1943. (New York: Ktav, 1980), pp. 58, 65, 82, 87, 118-119, 143-144, 157, 173, 175-176. Michaelis, Meir. Mussolini and the Jews: German-Italian Relations and the Jewish Question in Italy, 1922-1945. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), pp. 342-344, 396, 424. Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 1137.  Tittmann, Harold H., Jr., Harold H. Tittman III (Ed.). Inside the Vatican of Pius XII: The Memoir of an American Diplomat During World War II. (New York: Image Books Doubleday, 2004), pp. 11, 22-23, 53, 75, 81-82, 89-90, 100-101, 128, 134, 145-148, 154, 166, 167, 169, 177-178, 181-182, 188-190.]


Fikret Sefik Özdoganci, Turkey, Consul General in Paris, 1942-1945

[Shaw, Stanford J. Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey’s Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945. (New York: New York University Press, 1993), pp. 66, 79, 96, 156-159, 168, 170, 172-173, 190-191, 198-210.]


Inayetullah Cemal Özkaya, Turkey, Consul General in Athens, 1940-1945

[Shaw, Stanford J. Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey’s Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945. (New York: New York University Press, 1993), p. 333.]


Julio Palencia y Alvarez, Spain, Minister Plenipotentiary in Sofia, Bulgaria, 1940-43

In December 1940, Palencia organized protection for 150 Jews of Sephardic origin.  In 1943, he stepped up his actions to protect Jews from deportation.  He actively protested Bulgarian and Nazi persecutions of Jews.  Palencia contributed to the saving of the lives of more than 600 Bulgarian Jews.  For his actions, he was declared persona non grata and forced to return to Madrid.  Upon his return, he was reprimanded for his actions in Bulgaria. 

[Avni, Haim. Spain, the Jews and Franco. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1982), pp. 165-167, 180. Spanish Foreign Ministry. “Spanish Diplomats During the Holocaust.” (Downloaded from http://www.mae.es on 3/21/04.)]


Cesare Pasquinelli, Italian Vice Consul, Paris, 1942

Italian Vice Consul Cesare Pasquinelli was stationed in Paris in 1942.  He intervened with German authorities to free Italian Jews who had been arrested there.  He got into direct confrontations with German authorities over the issue of protection of Italian Jewish property in Paris.  Pasquinelli worked with Consul General Orlandini and Vice Consul Luciolli. 

[Carpi, Daniel. Between Mussolini and Hitler: The Jews and the Italian Authorities in France and Tunisia. (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1994), p. 44, 55-58, 263n.20.]


Herbert C. Pell, US Minister to Portugal, 1940?

The US Minister to Portugal, Herbert C. Pell, complained about the State Department’s policy of not granting visas to Jewish refugees leaving central Europe.  He felt that many of these refugees were some of the greatest minds in the world, and the US should take advantage and let them enter the country.  Pell told Varian Fry, of the Emergency Rescue Committee in Marseilles, that “there is a fire sale of brains going on here and we are not taking full advantage of it.  Our immigration laws are too rigid and some of our consuls interpret them too strictly.”

[Marino, Andy. A Quiet American: The Secret War of Varian Fry. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), p. 115.]


Vespasian V. Pella, Romanian Ambassador to Switzerland, 1944?

Vespasian V. Pella was the Romanian Ambassador to Switzerland, 1944.  He received information from the Romanian consul in Nagyvárad and his staff in Northern Transylvania about the persecution of Jews there.  This included extensive testimony of persecuted Jews who were in ghettoes pending deportation.  A Jewish physician, Dr. Miksa Kupfer, reported on the conditions in the Nagyvárad Ghetto.  Pella then gave a copy to the International Red Cross representatives in Switzerland.  It is believed that the Red Cross used this and other information to appeal to authorities to stop the deportations. This report may also have been forwarded to Hungarian Regent Admiral Horthy.

[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 907.]


Stj. Peric, Croatian Ambassador to Rome, 1942

Stj. Peric, the Croatian Ambassador to Rome, had a conversation with Roberto Ducci regarding the deportation of Jews in Croatia.  Peric was personally against the deportation of Jews, as he was aware the deportation would mean their murder. 

[Verax [Roberto Ducci]. “Italiani ed ebrei in Jugoslavia,” Politica Estera, I. (Rome, 1944), pp. 21-29.  Carpi, Daniel. "The Rescue of Jews in the Italian Zone of Occupied Croatia." In Rescue Attempts During the Holocaust. Proceedings of the Second Yad Vashem International Historical Conference, edited by Y. Gutman & E. Zuroff. (Jerusalem, 1977), pp. 483-484, 486.]


Dr. William Perl, Self-Appointed Diplomatic Representative of Liberia, Europe, 1938-1941

Dr. William Perl organized a massive rescue operation called AF-AL-PI (“In Spite of Everything”).  He was able to organize transport for thousands of Jews throughout Europe to Palestine and other destinations.  Dr. Perl appointed himself a Liberian diplomat.  He then printed hundreds of Liberian passports and distributed them to Jewish refugees to help them pass international frontiers.  He also counterfeited Paraguayan visas.

[Friling, Tuvia, translated by Ora Cummings. Arrows in the Dark: David Ben-Gurion, the Yishuv Leadership, and Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust (Vol. 1). (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005).  Ofer, Dalia. Escaping the Holocaust: Illegal Immigration to the Land of Israel, 1939-1944. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).  Perl, William R. The Four-Front War: From the Holocaust to the Promised Land. (New York: Crown Publishers, 1978).]


Giorgio “Jorge” Perlasca,* “Acting Chargé d’Affaires” of the Spanish Legation, Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45

Giorgio Perlasca, an Italian, is credited with saving thousands of Jewish refugees in Budapest.  He was granted Spanish citizenship for fighting with Franco in the Spanish Civil War.  Perlasca volunteered to work with the Spanish legation’s efforts to rescue Jews in Budapest.  In the fall of 1944, under Perlasca’s supervision, the number of Jews under the protection of Spanish safe houses in Budapest grew from 300 to about 3,000.  In December 1944, the Spanish Ambassador left Budapest and Perlasca began acting on his own authority.  Perlasca soon appointed himself “Spanish Ambassador” and, along with other volunteers, continued to issue thousands of protective passes stamped with the legation’s seal.  His bluff worked, and Nazi officials accepted his authority.  Perlasca also protected the Spanish safe houses in Budapest from Nazi and Arrow Cross raids.  Perlasca is credited with saving thousands of Jews.  Perlasca was declared Righteous Among the Nations in 1992.

[Deaglio, Enrico, translated by Gregory Conti. The Banality of Goodness: The Story of Giorgio Perlasca. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998).  Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 881, 1093. Asaf, Uri. Christian support for Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In Braham, Randolph L. (Ed.) Studies on the Holocaust in Hungary, pp. 65-112. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 94. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948), pp. 357-359, 364-367, 387-388.]


Pio Perucchi, Swiss Consular Officer in Milan, 1938-39

Pio Perucchi was a Swiss consular official stationed in Milan in 1938-1939.  Perucchi and his colleague Candido Porta were responsible for issuing more than 1,600 illegal and unauthorized visas to Jews who had fled Austria after the Anschluss.  The two consuls issued visas against the specific regulations and policies of the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police.  For his activities, Perucchi was not allowed to continue working at the consulate after March 1939.

[Swiss Federal Archives, Bern, Switzerland.  This information was provided by the Swiss Task Force in 2000.]


Count Luca Pietromarchi, Italian Foreign Ministry’s Superintendent of the Occupied Territories

Count Luca Pietromarchi was a career diplomat whose family belonged to the Papal nobility.  He served as an Italian diplomat responsible for the Cabinet of Armistice and Peace. Pietromarchi also served as the Italian foreign ministry's Superintendent of Occupied Territories.  In that post, he was extremely effective in protecting Jews from Nazi deportations.  Pietromarchi, along with Count d’Ajeta and Deputy Foreign Minister Bastianini, prepared reports to Italian dictator Mussolini discouraging him from handing over Jews in the Italian occupied territory to Nazi officials or their collaborators.

[Pietromarchi, Luca. “Frammenti delle memorie dell’ambasciatore Luca Pietromarchi. La difesa degli ebrei nel ’43,” Nuova Antologia, fasc 2161 (January-March 1987), pp. 241-247. Verax [Roberto Ducci]. “Italiani ed ebrei in Jugoslavia,” Politica Estera, I. (Rome, 1944), pp. 21-29. Carpi, Daniel. “The Italian Diplomat Luca Pietromarchi and His Activities on Behalf of the Jews in Croatia and Greece,” Yalkut Moreshet, 33 (1982), pp. 145-152 (Hebrew). Carpi, Daniel. "The Rescue of Jews in the Italian Zone of Occupied Croatia." In Rescue Attempts During the Holocaust. Proceedings of the Second Yad Vashem International Historical Conference, edited by Y. Gutman & E. Zuroff. (Jerusalem, 1977), p. 476. Carpi, 1990, p. 730. Carpi, Daniel. Between Mussolini and Hitler: The Jews and the Italian Authorities in France and Tunisia. (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1994), pp. 52-53, 108, 120, 129, 132, 135, 169, 265nn.35, 42. Herzer, 1989, pp. 209-216. Steinberg, 1990, pp. 56-60, 74-75, 85, 92-93, 168. Zuccotti, 1987, pp. 118. 128. Michaelis, Meir. Mussolini and the Jews: German-Italian Relations and the Jewish Question in Italy, 1922-1945. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 324. Carpi, Daniel. “The diplomatic negotiations over the transfer of Jewish children from Croatia to Turkey and Palestine in 1943.” Yad Vashem Studies, 12 (1977), 114-117.]


Marcel Pilet-Golaz, Swiss Foreign Minister, 1944

Marcel Pilet-Golaz, the Swiss Foreign Minister, received authority from the Swiss Federal Council “to offer a temporary refuge in Switzerland to 8,000 Hungarian Jews.”  Pilet-Golaz agreed to proceed with the rescue plan under Anglo-American guarantees. Minister Pilet-Golaz was a known pro-Nazi.

[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 1281 fn 102-103.]


Ms. Solange Pinzauti-Fivé, French Consulate in Rome, Italy, 1943

Mademoiselle Solange Pinzauti-Fivé, of the French consulate in Rome, helped Jews and other refugees in Rome during the Nazi occupation. 

[Waagenaar, Sam. The Pope’s Jews. (La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishers, 1974), p. 427.]


Victor Podoski, Polish Ambassador to Canada

Victor Podoski was the Polish Ambassador to Canada.  He requested the admission to Canada “for the duration of the war” of 2,000 Polish refugees, many of them government officials.  This request included more than 100 Jewish children.  Eventually, Polish refugees were let into Canada.

[Abella, Irving & Harold Troper. None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948 (3rd Ed.). (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2000), pp. 77, 80, 82-90, 93, 95-96, 99, 104, 109, 111, 116-117.]


Count Ferenc Pongrácz, Acting Diplomat for Portugal in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45

Count Ferrenc Pongrácz was a Hungarian civilian.  In 1944, Count Pongrácz volunteered to represent the Portuguese legation in Budapest, Hungary, as the acting Chargé d’Affaires.  Pongrácz energetically acted to protect the Jews in the Portuguese protected houses.  He signed many Portuguese protective passes so that the Arrow Cross would not be able to dispute the legality of the Portuguese documents. Pongrácz often acted in the absence of Portuguese Chargé d’Affaires Carlos Branquinho and Consul General Gulden. Pongrácz also signed a number of petitions to protect Jews in Budapest.

[Lévai, J., 1946, Grey Book on the Rescuing of Hungarian Jews. Budapest: Officina.  Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 881. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Spared Lives: The Actions of Three Portuguese Diplomats in World War II. (Portugal: Diplomatic Institute, 2000). Asaf, Uri. Christian support for Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In Braham, Randolph L. (Ed.) Studies on the Holocaust in Hungary, pp. 65-112. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 95. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948), pp. 357-359, 366, 384, 387-388, 406-410.]


José Carlos Ponti, Argentine Secretary of the Legation, Bucharest, Romania, 1942-44

José Carlos Ponti was a Secretary in the Argentine legation in Bucharest from 1942 to 1944.  He was in charge of representing business interests to the Romanian government.  Ponti helped save an Argentine Jewish woman from deportation.  This action created a diplomatic incident between Germany and Argentina in August 1944.

[Feierstein, Daniel and Miguel Galante. “Argentina and the Holocaust: The conceptions and policies of Argentine diplomacy, 1933-1945.” Yad Vashem Studies, 27 (1999), 194.]


Candido Porta, Swiss Consular Officer in Milan, 1938-39

Candido Porta was a Swiss consular official stationed in Milan in 1938-1939.  Porta and his colleague Pio Perucchi were responsible for issuing more than 1,600 illegal and unauthorized visas to Jews who had fled Austria after the Anschluss.  The two consuls issued visas against the specific regulations and policies of the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police.  For his activities, Porta was demoted and transferred to a different section.

[Swiss Federal Archives, Bern, Switzerland.  This information was provided by the Swiss Task Force in 2000.]

Pozdniakov, Soviet Consul in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, 1940

The Russian consul in Kovno, Lithuania, Pozdniakov, obtained agreement from Soviet officials to allow Jewish refugees holding a “Sauf-Conduits” (safe conduct pass) for stateless persons to emigrate and escape through the USSR.  This agreement was signed and proclaimed in Lithuania on April 22, 1940.  Japanese consul Chiune Sugihara helped convince Pozdniakov to allow this escape to take place.

[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 116.]


Eugenio Prato, Deputy Assistant to the Minister Plenipotentiary, Athens, Greece, 1941-1943

Consul Eugenio Prato was the Deputy Assistant to Pellegrino Ghigi, Italian Minister Plenipotentiary in Athens.  Prato assisted in the transfer of Jews from the German occupied zone to the Italian zone.  He assisted Consul General Guelfo Zamboni in the rescue of Jews in Athens. 

[Duman, Marion and Judy Krausz (Eds.). Compiled, translated and annotated with an introduction by Irith Dublon-Kenbel. German Foreign Office Documents on the Holocaust in Greece (1837-1944).  (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2007).  Film: Righteous Enemy, 1982.]


Thomas Preston, Consul for Great Britain in Kovno, Lithuania, 1940

Thomas Preston was a consul for Great Britain in Kovno, Lithuania.  In 1940, in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, Preston provided 400 illegal Palestine certificates for Jews who were able to escape from Lithuania through Istanbul to Palestine.  In addition, he provided 800 Jews legal travel certificates.  A few hundred of these Jews were able to cross the Baltic Sea to neutral Sweden.  At least 400 forged copies of the Preston visas were discovered by British officials in Istanbul.

[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 120.  Gilbert, Martin. Atlas of the Holocaust: Completely Revised and Updated. (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1988, 1993).  United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Flight and Rescue. (Washington, DC: Author, 2001), p. 58.  British Foreign Office document FO 371-23610, report by Thomas Preston from Kovno, Nov. 7, 1939.]


Ernst Prodolliet,* Swiss Consul General in Bregenz, Austria, 1938-39

Ernst Prodolliet was the Swiss Consul in Bregenz, Austria, 1938-1939.  He personally issued visas and documents to Jews and accompanied them to the Swiss border to help them escape Austria after the Nazi Anschluss.  He worked closely with police captain Paul Grüninger, who allowed the Jews to cross into Switzerland at the border area of St. Gallen.  Prodolliet received Israel’s Righteous Among the Nations award in 1982 for his life saving activities.

[Swiss Federal Archives, Bern, Switzerland.  This information was provided by the Swiss Task Force in 2000.]


Eduardo Propper de Callejón, First Secretary of the Spanish Consulate in Bordeaux, 1940

Eduardo Propper de Callejón was the First Secretary of the Spanish Consulate in Bordeaux.  He provided visas to Jews from his consulate in Bordeaux.  In early February 1941, Propper de Callejón was stationed at the Spanish embassy in Vichy.  There, he was transferred to a remote military outpost in Spanish Morocco.  Callejón’s family assumed the assignment was in reprisal for his issuing the visas without proper approval.  Propper de Callejón received a letter from the Spanish foreign ministry accusing him of “serving the interests of the French Jewish community.”  He lost his seniority within the Spanish diplomatic service.


Baron Wolfgang zu Putlitz, In Charge of the German Embassy’s Consular Department, London, June 1934 – May 1938

Baron Wolfgang zu Putlitz, who was in charge of the German embassy’s consular department in London, claimed in his memoirs that he and other non-Nazi consular officials in the German embassy in London found ways to help refugees.  Putlitz worked with Chief of the Aliens Department at the British Home Office Mr. E. N. Cooper.  Putlitz, at the time, was also providing high level intelligence on secret German rearmament to the British secret service (MI5). 

[London, L. Whitehall and the Jews, 1933-1948: British immigration policy, Jewish refugees and the Holocaust, pp. 64-65. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).]


Abdol Hossein Sardari Qajar, Iranian Consul in Paris, France, 1942-?

Consul Qajar took it upon himself to issue Iranian passports to Iranian and non-Iranian Jews in Paris who were faced with deportation to the concentration camps.  According to Fred Moktari, who is writing a book on the topic, “Abdol Hossein Sardari, as a young diplomat stationed in Paris, succeeded in having all Iranian Jews classified as "non-racially" connected to the rest of the Jewish people, thus forestalling the possible deportation of hundreds of Iranian Jews from France to Nazi death camps. Additionally, in 1942, he turned over 500 blank passports to Jewish acquaintances in Paris to help save other Jews fleeing from Nazi persecution. After the war, he was brought up on charges and was ultimately pardoned personally by the Shah of Iran.”

[Atchildi, Asaf. Rescue of Jews of Bukharan, Iranian and Afghan Origin in Occupied France (1940-1944), pp. 257-281.  Wiesenthal Center, 2004.]


Sebastián Romero Radigales, Spain, Consul General in Athens, 1943-44

Consul General Sebastián Romero Radigales, Consul General for Spain in Athens, intervened on behalf of more than 800 Jews of Athens and Salonica in 1943, preventing their deportation to Nazi concentration camps.  In one instance, he managed to evacuate 150 Jews from a deportation train.  Throughout the war, Radigales continued to protest German actions against Jews.  As a result, the German Ambassador in Athens lodged a complaint against Radigales asking the Spanish government to instruct Radigales not to interfere in deportations.  By the end of the war, Radigales was able to provide protection for numerous Jews in Greece and saved them from deportation to Auschwitz. 

[Avni, Haim. Spain, the Jews and Franco. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1982), pp. 149-159, 178, 180. Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 1394. Avni, Haim. “Spanish Nationals in Greece and their Fate during the Holocaust.” Yad Vashem Studies, 8 (1970), pp. 47-49, 52, 54, 57-60, 68. Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.).  The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 602.]


Rudolph Rahn, German Ambassador in Tunisia and Rome, Italy, 1942-1944?

Rudolph Rahn, the German Ambassador in Tunisia in 1942 and in Italy in 1943-1944?, intervened to remove Jews from the jurisdiction of the Gestapo to protect them from being deported.  He recommended that Jews be used for local labor service for the benefit of the German Army in lieu of deportation.  He did this with the approval of German commander and Field Marshall Kesselring.  Rahn, along with diplomat Möllhausen, helped stop Hitler from his proposed occupation of Vatican City after the fall of Mussolini in 1943.

[Katz, Robert. Black Sabbath: A Journey Through a Crime Against Humanity. (Toronto: MacMillan, 1969), pp. 56-62, 136-139.  Rahn, Rudolf. Un diplomate dans la tourmente. (Paris, 1948).  Rahn, Rudolph. Ruheloses Leben: Aufzeichnungen und Erinnerungen [Restless Life: Reflections and Memories]. (Dusseldorf: Diederichs Verlag, 1949). Möllhausen, Eitel Friedrich. Die Gebrochene Achse [The Broken Axis].  (Luxembourg: Alpha Verlag, 1949). Reitlinger, Gerald. The Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945. (New York: The Beechhurst Press, 1953), p. 353. Michaelis, Meir. Mussolini and the Jews: German-Italian Relations and the Jewish Question in Italy, 1922-1945. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), pp. 347, 349, 354, 362, 369, 379-380. 390, 398-400, 402.]


D. Rentenswärd, Swedish Representative in Romania, 1943?

Mr. Rentenswärd made efforts to help Jews in Transylvania, Romania, during the deportations.

[Dworzecki, Meir, “The International Red Cross and its Policy Vis-à-Vis the Jews in Ghettos and Concentration Camps in Nazi-Occupied Europe,” in Gutman, Y., and E. Zuroff (Eds.). Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust: Proceedings of the Second Yad Vashem International Historical Conference, Jerusalem, 3-11 April, 1974. (Jerusalem, 1977), p. 100.]


Cecil von Renthe-Fink, Minister, German Legation, Copenhagen, Denmark

[Yahil, 1969]


Arvid Richert, Swedish Minister in Berlin, Germany, October 1943

Arvid Richert was the Swedish Minister in Berlin in October 1943.  In response to the proposed deportation of Danish Jews in October 1943, Richert submitted an official proposal to the German Foreign Ministry that would place Danish Jews as refugees in camps in Sweden.  The Germans never answered the proposal.  The Swedish government announced that it would accept Danish Jewish refugees.  Soon, 9,000 Danish Christians and 7,000 Danish Jews reached Sweden.  Later, 100 Finnish Jews were brought to Sweden. 

[Reitlinger, Gerald. The Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945. (New York: The Beechhurst Press, 1953), pp. 350-351. Levine, Paul A. From Indifference to Activism: Swedish Diplomacy and the Holocaust: 1938-1944. (Uppsala, Sweden: 1998), pp. 115-118, 124, 129-130, 138-139, 151-154, 157, 159-160, 166, 171, 175-179, 182-183, 215-216, 218, 223, 235-246. Yahil, L. “Scandinavian Countries to the Rescue of Concentration Camp Prisoners.” Yad Vashem Studies, 6 (1967), pp. 185, 187, 191, 194, 196. Koblik, Steven. The Stones Cry Out: Sweden’s Response to the Persecution of the Jews, 1933-1945. (New York: Holocaust Library, 1988), pp. 22, 57-60, 65, 122-126, 132, 143-147, 154, 157, 161, 174-176, 185-190, 195-197, 199-203, 219-220, 270, 273-281. Yahil, Leni. The Rescue of Danish Jewry: Test of a Democracy. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1969), pp. 329-331. Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 1438.  Swedish Foreign Office, The Swedish Relief Expedition to Germany 1945: Prelude and Negotiations [Stockholm, 1956], White Book, 1956; Swedish Foreign Office Archives [UDA], Stockhom; Persson, 2009, pp. 55-56, 60, 62, 64, 66, 67, 69-70, 75-77, 79, 81-82, 96-97, 108-109, 152, 167, 177-178, 189-190, 190-191, 251-252.]


Dr. Riensberg, German Shipping Attaché stationed in Stockholm, Sweden, 1943

Dr. Riensberg was the German shipping attaché stationed in Stockholm, Sweden.  He worked closely with Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, the German shipping attaché stationed in Copenhagen, in the rescue of Danish Jews.  They worked out a secret code that would allow them to communicate regarding the rescue action of October 1943.  This arrangement would expedite the rescue efforts and inform Duckwitz if the Jewish refugees arrived safely in Stockholm. 

[Duckwitz, Georg Ferdinand. Die geplannte Aktion gegen die dänischen Juden und ihre Verhinderung. (Copenhagen: Rigsarkivet, Duckwitz Archives, 1957; and Jerusalem: Yad Vashem Archives File #027/13).  Duckwitz, Georg Ferdinand. Die Aktion gegen die dänischen Juden im Herbst 1943—Plan und Durchführing. (Copenhagen: Rigsarkivet, Duckwitz Archives, 1964).  Yahil, Leni. The Rescue of Danish Jewry: Test of a Democracy.(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1969), p. 151.]


Hubert Ripka, Acting Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1944

The Acting Czechoslovakian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hubert Ripka requested that the Allied governments issue an emphatic demarche and warning to the German government regarding war crimes in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and elsewhere. 

[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 1289 fn 223.]


Luis I. Rodriguez, Mexican Ambassador to France, 1939-1940

Luis I. Rodriguez was appointed the Mexican ambassador to France by President Lazaro Cardenas.  Together with Consul General Gilberto Bosques, he presented numerous letters of protest regarding the horrendous conditions inside the French internment camps.  These camps housed thousands of former Spanish Republican soldiers and Jewish refugees who were considered by the French government to be enemy aliens.  Later, Rodriguez and Bosques presented formal complaints to the Vichy government regarding the deportation and murder of Jews.  Rodriguez left France at the end of 1940, leaving Bosques in charge.

[Rodriguez, Luis I. Misión de Luis I. Rodriguez en Francia: La protección de los refugiados españoles, Julio a diciembre de 1940. (Mexico: El Colegio de México, Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, 2000).  Salzman, Daniela Gleizer. México Frente a la Inmigración de Refugiados Judíos: 1934-1940. (Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historía, 2000).  Kloyber, Christian (Ed.). Exilio y Cultura: El Exilio Cultural Austriaco en México. (Mexico: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 2002).]


José Rojas y Moreno Conde de Casa, Spain, Minister in Bucharest, 1941, and Ankara, 1944

José Rojas y Moreno Conde de Casa was the Spanish Minister in Bucharest in 1941 and in Ankara in 1944.  Rojas arrived in Bucharest in 1941 and from the beginning was a harsh critic of the Nazi policy of persecuting Jews.  He was adamantly opposed to the deportation of Jews and the harsh conditions imposed by the Nazis.  He posted diplomatic protective signs on over 300 houses where Jewish families lived.  In 1944, Rojas was directly responsible for the evacuation of 65 Jews to Spain. 

[Avni, Haim. Spain, the Jews and Franco. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1982), pp. 81, 93, 132-133. Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.).  The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 602. Spanish Foreign Ministry. “Spanish Diplomats During the Holocaust.” (Downloaded from http://www.mae.es/documento/0/000/000/007/diplomaticos/enghlish/rojas.html on 3/21/04.)]


Ion Romascan, Romanian Diplomat

Ion Romascan was a Romanian diplomat who visited the various counties of Northern Transylvania to acquaint himself with the ghettoization and deportation process.

[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 919.  Marina, Mihai. “Nu puteam ramine impasibili!” [We could not remain impassive!] Magazin Istoric [Historical Magazine), Bucharest, no. 67, June 1976, pp. 39-41.  See also pp. 37-38.]


Count Tadeusz Romer, Polish Ambassador to Japan, 1937-1941

The Polish Ambassador to Japan representing the government in exile, Count Tadeusz Romer, served as the ambassador from 1937-1941.  Though Poland was conquered by Germany and Russia, Japan recognized the Polish government-in-exile in London until October 1941.  Up till that time, Romer helped Jews stranded in Japan to find safe havens.  Romer issued more than 300 visas to Polish Jews.  He wrote to his fellow diplomats in Canada, Great Britain and Australia:  “It is…not fitting to enquire whether this or that Polish refugee is Jew or Christian but only whether or not he is a faithful and devoted servant of his country and thereby of the common cause of the Allies.”

[USHMM, Flight and Rescue, 2001.]


Archbishop Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Bulgaria, 1931-1934, and Greece-Turkey, 1934-1943

Archbishop Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (1881-1963), who later became Pope John XXIII, interceded with King Boris of Bulgaria on behalf of the Bulgarian Jews, and with the Turkish government on behalf of Jewish refugees who had fled to Turkey.  He also did his utmost to prevent the deportation of Greek Jews.  One of the main sources of information to the Vatican about the Holocaust was provided by Roncalli.  He provided reports about the annihilation of millions of Jews in Poland and Eastern Europe.  During the German occupation of Greece, he helped the local population and did his utmost to prevent the deportation of Greek Jews.  

Roncalli issued a form of Vatican protective paper to numerous eastern European Jewish refugees in the areas of Slovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Italy and France.  He also worked closely with US Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt, WRA representative Ira Hirschmann, Yishuv representative Chaim Barlas, and others in helping Jewish refugees come to Turkey.  In 1944, he was appointed Nuncio to Paris.  In 1953, he was appointed Patriarch of Venice. 

In 1958, Roncalli was elected Pope.  He was responsible for instituting many of the reforms in the Catholic church, especially under his Vatican II Council.  These actions led to closer relations between Jews and Catholics.  Roncalli died in 1963.

[Giovanni XXIII.  Il Pastore.  Corrispondenza dal 1911 al 1963 con I preti del Sacro Cuore di Bergamo. (Padova, 1982), pp. 256, 261. Della Rocca, Roberto Morozzo. “Roncalli Diplomatico in Turchia e Grecia, 1935-1944” in Cristianesimo nella Storia, VIII/2. (1987), pp. 33-72, particularly pp. 55-56, 58.  Vatican (Holy See). Actes et documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. 12 vols. (1966-1981). Hoffmann, Peter. “Roncalli in the Second World War: Peace Initiatives, the Greek Famine and the Persecution of the Jews.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, XL (1989), pp. 74-99. Rubin, Barry. Istanbul Intrigues, pp. 47-48, 93-94, 213-214. Hebblethwaite, Peter. Pope John XXIII: Shepherd of the modern world. (New York, 1985), pp. 141-143. Righi, Vittoro Ugo. Papa Giovanni sulle rive del Bosforo. (Padua, Italy, 1971).  Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 1065, 1070.  Morley, John. Vatican Diplomacy and the Jews during the Holocaust, 1939-1943. (New York: Ktav, 1980), pp. 43, 45, 61, 91-92, 94, 122-123, 161, 206. Hirschmann, Ira A. Life Line to a Promised Land. (New York: Vanguard Press, 1946), p. 70. Rothkirchen, Livia. “Vatican Policy and the ‘Jewish Problem’ in ‘Independent’ Slovakia (1939-1945).” Yad Vashem Studies, 6 (1967), pp. 44, 50. Cahill, Thomas. Pope John XXIII. (New York: Viking, 2002), pp. 135-137. Elliott, Lawrence. I will be called John: A biography of Pope John XXIII. (New York: Reader’s Digest Press, E. P. Dutton, 1973), pp. 125-170.  Lapide, Pinchas E. Three Popes and the Jews. (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1967), pp. 31, 145-146, 150, 152, 161, 165-167, 171, 179-181, 221-222, 301, 306-353. Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.).  The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 642. Morse, Arthur D. While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. (New York: Random House, 1967), pp. 335-336. Shaw, Stanford J. Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey’s Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945. (New York: New York University Press, 1993), pp. 274-279, 297. Gilbert, Martin. Auschwitz and the Allies: A Devastating Account of How the Allies Responded to the News of Hitler’s Mass Murder. (New York: Henry Holt, 1981), p. 122. Hirschmann, Ira. Caution to the Winds. (New York: David McKay Co.), pp. 179-185. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust.  (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 154, 200. Ofer, D. “The Rescue Activities of the Jewish Agency Delegation in Istanbul in 1943.” In Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust. Proceedings of the Second Yad Vashem International Historical Conference, edited by Y. Gutman and E. Zuroff, pp. 435-450. (Jerusalem, 1977). Conway, John S. “Records and documents of the Holy See relating to the Second World War.” Yad Vashem Studies, 15 (1983), 327-345. Levin, Nora. The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry, 1933-1945. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1968), pp. 544, 658, 688. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948).  Rotkirchen, L. Hurban Yahadut Slovakyah (1961) 29f. (Eng. Pt.).  Bea, A. The Church and the Jewish People (1966).  Gilbert, A. The Vatican Council and the Jews (1968).  Friling, Tuvia, translated by Ora Cummings. Arrows in the Dark: David Ben-Gurion, the Yishuv Leadership, and Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust (Vols. 1 and 2). (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), Vol. 1 pp. 218-219, 225, Vol. 2, p. 5.]


Aracy de Carvalho-Guimaraes Rosa,* Aide to the Brazilian Ambassador in Berlin

For her actions to save Jews in Berlin, Rosa was awarded the Righteous Among the Nations life saving award in 1982.

[Eck, Nathan. “The Rescue of Jews With the Aid of Passports and Citizenship Papers of Latin American States.” Yad Vashem Studies on the European Jewish Catastrophe and Resistance, 1 (1957), pp. 125-152.]


Ricardo Rosenberg, Italian Vice Consul in Salonika, 1943

Ricardo Rosenberg helped save Jews at the Italian consulate in Salonika, Greece.  He worked under Consul Generals Zamboni and Castrucci. 

[Duman, Marion and Judy Krausz (Eds.). Compiled, translated and annotated with an introduction by Irith Dublon-Kenbel. German Foreign Office Documents on the Holocaust in Greece (1837-1944).  (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2007).  Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 614. Rochlitz, Joseph. “Excerpts from the Salonika Diary of Lucillo Merci (February-August 1943).” Yad Vashem Studies, 18 (1987), pp. 302. Molho, M., & J. Nehama. The Destruction of Greek Jewry, 1941-1945. (Jerusalem, 1965). In Hebrew. Carpi, Daniel (Ed.). Italian Diplomatic Documents on the History of the Holocaust in Greece (1941-1943). (Tel Aviv: Diaspora Research Institute, 1999).  Carpi, Daniel. "Notes on the History of the Jews in Greece during the Holocaust Period: The Attitude of the Italians (1941-1943)." In Festschrift in Honor of Dr. George S. Wise, H. Ben-Shahar et al., Eds., pp. 25-62. (Tel Aviv, 1981).]


Augusto Rosso, Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry of Italy, 1943

After the fall of the Italian fascist party in July 1943, Marshal Pietro Badoglio established a new party that negotiated the cease fire with the Allies.  The newly appointed Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry, Augusto Rosso, sent a cable and policy statement to the military officers in charge of the refugees in Croatia which reinforced the Ministry’s previous position to protect Jews in the occupied territories.  The effort to save Jews from the deportation no longer had to be kept a secret. 

[Carpi, Daniel. "The Rescue of Jews in the Italian Zone of Occupied Croatia." In Rescue Attempts During the Holocaust. Proceedings of the Second Yad Vashem International Historical Conference, edited by Y. Gutman & E. Zuroff. (Jerusalem, 1977), pp. 500-502. Carpi, Daniel. Between Mussolini and Hitler: The Jews and the Italian Authorities in France and Tunisia. (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1994), pp. 169, 173, 186.]


Monsignor Angelo Rotta,* Italy, Vatican diplomat in Sofia, Bulgaria, and Papal Nuncio (Ambassador) in Budapest, 1944-45

Monsignor Angelo Rotta was a major rescuer of Jews and was one of the few Papal nuncios to take direct action to save Jews.  At the time of his assignment in Budapest, he was 72 years old.  As a member of the Vatican diplomatic corps in Sofia, Bulgaria, he took measures to save Bulgarian Jews by issuing false baptismal certificates and visas for Jews to travel to Palestine.  Later, Rotta was the Dean of the diplomatic corps in Budapest.  He actively protested the deportation and murder of Hungarian Jews.  He eventually issued more than 15,000 safe conduct certificates to Jews who were protected by the Vatican neutrality.  Rotta also issued hundreds of safe conducts and baptismal certificates to Jews in labor camps, at deportation centers and on the death marches.  He set up and personally protected numerous safe houses throughout Budapest. Rotta was aided by his assistant, Father Gennaro Verolino.  The Vatican utilized numerous Jewish and non-Jewish volunteers in its rescue efforts.  Angelo Rotta received the title Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel in 1997.

[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 717-718, 744, 795, 832-833, 862, 881, 914, 955, 967, 1015, 1034, 1051, 1067-1077, 1196, 1216-1225. Vatican (Holy See). Actes et documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. 12 vols. (1966-1981). Morley, John. Vatican Diplomacy and the Jews during the Holocaust, 1939-1943. (New York: Ktav, 1980), pp. 80-81, 84, 90, 153-154. Asaf, Uri. Christian support for Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In Braham, Randolph L. (Ed.) Studies on the Holocaust in Hungary, pp. 65-112. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 97. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948), pp. 196-201, 226-227, 232-233, 304, 318-319, 354, 357-359, 364, 366-367, 371-373, 384, 397. Lévai, Jenö, translated by Frank Vajda. Raoul Wallenberg: His Remarkable Life, Heroic Battles and the Secret of his Mysterious Disappearance. (Melbourne, 1988, originally published in Hungarian in 1948), pp. 87-88, 161, 167. Morse, Arthur D. While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. (New York: Random House, 1967). Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust.  (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 194, 200, 207. Conway, John S. “Records and documents of the Holy See relating to the Second World War.” Yad Vashem Studies, 15 (1983), 327-345. Kramer, T. D. From Emancipation to Catastrophe: The Rise and Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry. (New York: University Press of America), pp. 247-286. Lévai, Jenö. Fehér könyv, Külföldi akciók zsidók megmentésére [White Book, Foreign Actions for the Rescuing of Jews.]. (Budapest: Officina, 1946). Meszlényi, Antal (Ed.). A magyar katolikus egyház és as emberi jogok védelme [The Hungarian Roman Catholic Church and the Protection of Human Rights]. (Budapest: Stephaneum, 1947).  (Includes an essay by Monsignor Angelo Rotta.) Péterffy Gedeon, a katolikus papnevelde elöljárójának nyilatkozata a magyar katolikus egyház szerepér öl a zsidótörvények és zsidóüldözések idején [The Statement of Gedeon Péterffy, the Leader of the Catholic Seminary During the Period of the Jewish Laws and Jewish Persecutions]. (Budapest, Haladás [Progress], December 29, 1945.  (Emphasizes the rescue activities of Angelo Rotta and Gennaro Verolino.) Rotta, Angelo. “A budapesti nunciatura diplomáciai akciója a zsidók érdekében [The diplomatic campaign of the Budapest Nunciature on behalf of the Jews].” In Antal Meszlényi (Ed.), A magyar katolikus egyház és as emberi jogok védelme [The Hungarian Roman Catholic Church and the Protection of Human Rights]. (Budapest: Stephaneum, 1947), pp. 21-30.  (The rescue of Jews in Budapest by Angelo Rotta and Gennaro Verolino.) György, Ferenc. A budai Szent Erbébet-kórház legendája [The Legend of Saint Elizabeth Hospital of Buda]. (Budapest: Világ [World], 1947. (Periodical article on the rescue activities of Angelo Rotta and Gennaro Verolino.) Ujvári, Sándor. “Szabálytalan önéletrajz [An Irregular Autobiography].” Menora, February 17, 1979. (The author’s rescue activities under the auspices of Rotta and Verolino.) Fein, Helen. Accounting for Genocide. (New York: Free Press, 1979), pp. 107-110. Anger, Per. Translated by David Mel Paul and Margareta Paul. With Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest: Memories of the War Years in Hungary. (New York: Holocaust Library, 1981).]


A. Routier, Honorary Turkish Consul General in Lyon, France, 1942-43

A. Routier was the Honorary Turkish Consul General in Lyon, France.  He issued certificates of citizenship and passports to Turkish Jews in southern France.  These Turkish citizens had lost their right to citizenship due to their not registering with the Consul General for an extended period.  They were assumed to be French citizens by the Turkish government. 

[Shaw, Stanford J. Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey’s Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945. (New York: New York University Press, 1993), pp. 62-63, 335.  Report to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the activities of the Honorary Turkish Consul-General in Lyon, Archives of the Turkish Embassy (Paris) Dossier 6127, no. 638 26 November 1942.]



 

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* Recognized by the State of Israel as Righteous among the Nations, Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
** Recognized by the State of Israel with Letter of Commendation.