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Diplomats Who Risked It All to Save Lives

Virtual Event
Children aboard the President Harding pull into New York harbor in 1939. They were brought to the United States by Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus with the help of American diplomat, Raymond Geist, who secured visas for hundreds of unaccompanied children. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Steven Pressman

Children aboard the President Harding pull into New York harbor in 1939. They were brought to the United States by Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus with the help of American diplomat, Raymond Geist, who secured visas for hundreds of unaccompanied children. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Steven Pressman

While posted in Berlin, American diplomat Raymond Geist worked within a restrictive immigration system to help save as many victims of Nazi persecution as he could, including Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Another diplomat, Colonel José Arturo Castellanos of El Salvador and his first secretary, Jewish businessman George Mandel-Mantello, defied government instructions by providing citizenship certificates to thousands of European Jews who had no connection to El Salvador—most didn’t even speak Spanish. Join us as we commemorate World Refugee Day and honor diplomats who dared to take great risks to offer refuge and save lives.

Speaker
Dr. Edna Friedberg, Historian, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Host
Dr. Lisa Leff, Director of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Watch live at facebook.com/holocaustmuseum. After the live broadcast, the recording will be available to watch on demand on the Museum's Facebook and YouTube pages.

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  • Raymond Geist

    As the senior US consular official in Berlin during the years leading up to World War II, Raymond Geist was responsible for issuing tens of thousands of visas to German Jews fleeing Nazi persecution.

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    George Mandel-Mantello used his diplomatic position to issue documents identifying thousands of European Jews as citizens of El Salvador. He sent notarized copies of these certificates into occupied Europe, in the hope of saving the holders from the Nazis.

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  • What Did Refugees Need to Obtain a US Visa in the 1930s?

    As the Nazi regime’s attacks intensified in the late 1930s, hundreds of thousands of Jews in Germany tried to immigrate to the United States. It was difficult to get the necessary papers to leave Germany, and US immigration visas were difficult to obtain. The process could take years.

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