George Mantello and The Politics of Genocide
From: jpshinley@my-dejanews.com
Date: 3/15/99 5:27 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <7ck1gb$lr7$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
The Politics of Genocide : The Holocaust in Hungary
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Rudolph L. Braham. (Columbia University Press, NY, 1981)
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p1120
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The rescue activities of El Salvador were primarily the consequence
of the efforts of a single person, Georges M. Mantello (formerly
know as Gyorgy Mandel or Mandl). A Hungarian Jew from the Transylvanian
town of Beszterce, he arrived in Switzerland in December, 1941,
reportedly as a purchasing agent for the Roumanians. Eventually he
managed to have himself appointed First Secretary of the Consulate
General of El Salvador in Geneva. In this capacity, he undertook
several actions designed to help the victims of Nazism, especially
Hungarian Jews. In connection with the latter, his achievements were
twofold. First, with the cooperation of Colonel I. H. Castellanos,
the Consul General, but originally without the knowledge of the
government of El Salvador, Mantello sent a few hundred "nationality"
certificates to Hungary. The possessors of these certificates were
considered foreign nationals and exempted from general anti-Jewish
decrees. (267) Some complications arose over the fact that El Salvador
had no nation to look after its interests in Hungary. (268) (The Swiss,
and later the Swedish, representatives in Budapest had assumed that role
somewhat informally.) Mantello's second major achievement, which was
shared with Pozner, was to contact Krausz in Budapest via Florian
Manoliu, a member of the Roumanian Legation in Berne. It was through
Manoliu that Krausz sent his June 19 report with the abbreviated version
of the Auschwitz protocols that evoked the worldwide reaction against
the anti-Jewish drive in Hungary (see chapters 23 and 29). (269) Acting
independently of the many domestic and international Jewish
organizations in Switzerland, Mantello distributed the Krausz material
to leading Swiss clergymen, political and academic figures, and
journalists. He was effectively supported in this campaign by Walter
Garret, the Zurich representative of the London-based Exchange
Telegraph Company. On relief matters, he was aided by his brother
Joesph (Iosip) Mandel. (270)
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p1139
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267. Steiner, an official of the Swiss legation complained (July 11)
to Jeni Miske-Gerstenberger of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs that false El Salvador "nationality certificates" were being
brought in from Switzerland and allegedly sold at high prices to Jews.
Vadirat 3:136.
268. See Harrison telegram no. 3867 (June 17) to the Department of
State, transmitting McClelland message for WRB [War Refugee Board].
269. For a highly positive evaluation of Mantello's role, see [Jeno]
Levai, Zsidosors Europaban (Jewish Fate in Europe) (Budapest: Magyar
Teka, 1948), 335pp.
270. Joseph Mandel (also known as Josef Mandl), a textile specialist
for the I.N.C.O. firm of Bucharest, was sent to Switzerland in 1941
by the Ministry of National Defense of the Antonescu government to
acquire arircraft cloth. Presumably he failed to carry out his
assignment, for on October 21, 1942, the Ministry of the Interior
asked N. Lahovary, the Roumanian Minister in Berne, to bring about his
extradition. (The Roumanian authorities planned to deport him to
Transnistria.) In Switzerland, Joseph Mandel maintained close contact
with Abraham Silberschein, the head of RELICO [a Swiss-based Jewish
organization], informing him periodically about developments in Hungary
- news he usually obtained through his Roumanian contacts. For
pertinent documents, see Yad Vashem Archives [Jerusalem] M-20/46.
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pp712-713
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It was only during the second half of June [1944] that the Hungarian
Jewish leaders began to distribute copies of the [Auschwitz] Protocols
among the influential government and church leaders of Hungary and
among their friends abroad. A copy was given by Peto to Miklos Horthy,
Jr. for transmission to his father. Miklos (Mosche) Krausz of the
Palestine Office at Budapest submitted an abbreviated English version
of the Protocols, together with a report on the ghettoization,
concentration, and deportation processes in Zones I-III, to Switzerland
on June 19, 1944. He claimed that he had received the material only
the day before from Joseph Reisner, a Jewish employee of the Turkish
legation in Budapest. (84) The material was taken to Switzerland by
Florian Manoliu, a member of the Roumanian Legation in Berne, who had
close, and reputedly lucrative relations with George (Mandel)
Mantello, a Jewish business man originally from the Transylvanian
city of Beszterce, who was then serving as the First Secretary of
the General Consulate of El Salvador in Geneva. Manoliu's mission was
undertaken at the request of Chaim Pozner, Krausz's counterpart in
Switzerland, whose note Manoliu took along as "his letter of
accreditation."
The material provided by Krausz was duplicated and disseminated
in Switzerland thanks to Mantello. (85) It was distributed with a
covering letter dated July 4, 1944, and signed by Professor D. Karl
Barth of Basel, Professor D. Emil Brunner of Zurich, Dr. W. A.
Vissor t'Hooft, Geneva, and Pastor Paul Vogt of Zurich. (86) A more
nearly complete version of the protocols was brought to Switzerland
by a courier of the Czech underground. It was delivered to Dr.
Jarumir Kopecky, the Czechoslovak Minister, who immediately made it
available to the World Jewish Congress and other international
Jewish organizations.
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p729
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84. Interview with this author, Jerusalem, October 16, 1972. Krausz,
Kasztner's long-time enemy, also claimed, without providing proof, that
Kasztner obtained a copy of the Protocols in April, 1944.
85. Krausz claims that the material was addressed to Dr. Chaim
Pozner, although the copies distributed in Switzerland identify
Mantello as the addressee. In a letter addressed to Pozner on July
19, 1971, Krausz confirmed that he had in fact sent the material to
him and not to Martello, whom he "did not know at the time and had
not even heard of." He asserted that the version reproduced in several
books and in the press, addressed to Mantello, was a "blantant
falsification." Moreover, he disclaimed the signature and the
handwritten text in Yiddish at the end of the document, claiming that
it was "the fruit of someone's imagination." For a sample of the
reproduction disclaimed by Krausz, see Jeno Levai, Zsidosors Europaban
(Jewish Fate in Europe) (Budapest: Magyar Teka, 1948), p. 48. For the
text of Krausz's letter and reports of June 19, 1944, see file
M-20/95 at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. For further details involving the
activities of Krausz, Mantello, and Pozner, see chapters 29 and 31.
86. Yad Vashem Archives M-20/47. A copy of the report circulated
by Reverend Vogt, head of the Fluchtlingshilfe (Refugee Aid) of
Zurich, was the basis of a short article in the New York Times of
July 6, 1944 p.6 ("Two Death Camps Places of Horror").
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p.730
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92. In a letter to Vrba, dated May 18, 1964, Mantello made the
following comments on the reports he had received from Budapest:
"These reports ... were short and arrived in Switzerland rather late
... If we had received your complete report about six or seven weeks
earlier, say about the same time you had it sent to Budapest, perhaps
we could have put a stop to the deportations, since we would have
started a big press campaign in Switzerland and abroad." [Erich K.]
Kulka, "Five Escapes from Auschwitz," pp 217-8 [They Fought Back. The
Story of the Jewish Resistance in Nazi Europe, ed. Yuri Suhl (New
York: Crown, 1967)].
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We're supposed to believe Clay Shaw was a Nazi because he was
associated with the man who blew the whistle on Auschwitz?
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Jerry Shinley
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