By Eichmann’s decision, the Bulgarian Jews were included in the extermination program. In 1943, Julio Palencia was notified about the imminent deportations by the Prime Minister Bogdan Filov. Palencia immediately telegraphed the Spanish government, requesting their intervention. He also made negotiations before Filov, while asking permission to Madrid to name paid consular agents in those cities where Sephardic Jews reside in order to avoid deportations.

Palencia continued insisting to Madrid the need of evacuating the Jews to Spain.

At the same time he did not give up interceding before the Bulgarian authorities in such a way that his own situation became untenable. The Bulgarian police, that watched over the embassy and interrogated everyone who went in and out of the building, caught Palencia’s secretary (who was Jewish) accusing him of espionage. Palencia appealed to the German
ambassador in Sophie to protect his secretary, without success,

Palencia’s clear and decided position gave him the epithet, ”The friend of the Jews” in the German correspondence. Indeed, he had the audacity to openly challenge the nazi authorities by opposing to the execution of aBulgarian Jew, León Arié. He addressed the German ambassador in Sophie, reporting the abuses. He made the Bulgarian court authorize him to adopt León Arié ’s son and daughter and he gave lodge to their mother in the
official residence and protected them with a Spanish passport.

The tautness got so far that Palencia was finally declared ”persona non grata” (no agreeable person) and was obliged to return to Madrid. Before leaving, he had to oppose the Nazis in a great dramatic situation because of his intension of taking his adopted children with him.

When his mission ended he had saved the lives of more than 600 Bulgarian Jews.

Translation: Lara Schujovitzky

In august 1941, Rolland made an active intervention in favor of 14 Sephardic Jews that had been arrested and sent to the concentration camp of Drancy. By the same date, Rolland assumed a risky initiative documented in a German Memo dated September 14th. He appealed to the German authorities of Paris, proposing the transfer of 2000 Jews (included the ones in Drancy) to the Spanish Morocco in the term of a few weeks. After that, though without much success, he tried to ease the exit of the Jews from France, while continuing with his denouncements against persecutions which were more severe every time.

In 1942, Rolland’s measures succeeded. It was impossible for the authorities of Vichy to confiscate the Jewish people’s patrimony

In September 1943 and despite the German’s pressures, the Spanish government started the evacuation of French citizens from the coast of Cadiz, Algeciras and Malaga. Even when Rolland finished his term in Paris by the middle of 1943, it is certain that his efforts in favor of the Jewish people contributed decisively in making these evacuations possible.

Translation: Lara Schujovitzky

Rojas y Moreno was responsible for the evacuation to Spain of 65 Jewish
Sephardim. In addition, he gave protection to the goods and estates of other 200 persecuted Jewish.

Translation: Lara Schujovitzky

In a document dated April 30th, 1943 (taken from the German Ministry of Foreign Affaires), the German ambassador in Athens, Günther Altenburg deplored the insistent demands of Romero Radigales. As a consequence of requests, Altenburg was forced to postpone the deportation of several hundreds of Jewish Sephardim. He wanted the intervention of the Ministry to ask Madrid to give instructions to Romero Radigales to stop interfering with the deportations.

Romero Radigales adopted initiatives, which had the result of the evacuation of 150 persons in an Italian military train. He also fought until the last moment to avoid the deportations of the 367 remaining Jews, provoking a deep discomfort in the German authorities. His first efforts were fruitless.

However, in February 1944, the Germans authorized the move of the deported Jews to Spain. He also orders to deposit the goods of Sephardic Jews in the Spanish embassy, with the aim of protecting them from falling in the power of the nazis and allowing their subsequent recuperation.

Translation: Lara Schujovitzky

Sebastián de Romero Radigales Honored on Postage Stamp

The fall of 1943 marked his surprise appointment as an official representative of the Italian government with diplomatic status in Budapest. He was sent as an emissary to the countries of Eastern Europe, charged with the mission of purchasing meat for the Italian army. On the 8th of November, American General Dwight Eisenhower announced the unconditional surrender of Italy to the Allied forces. The Hungarian government, threatened by Germany, took Perlasca prisoner and sent him to a castle reserved for diplomats. After months of captivity, he took advantage of a medical pass that he had been issued permitting him to travel inside of Budapest and sought refuge in the Spanish Embassy, the scene of his earlier adventures, in hopes of obtaining asylum. Immediately Giorgio became known as ”Jorge”, and was granted the same rights enjoyed by all Spanish citizens.

Very soon afterward he began to contribute to the efforts that Angel Sanz Briz, head of the Spanish mission in Budapest, was making in collaboration with representatives of other diplomatic delegations like Switzerland, Sweden, Portugal and the Vatican to rescue Jews in Budapest. When it became necessary for Sanz Briz to flee Hungary at the end of 1944 because of his refusal to recognize the new pro-Nazi government of Ferenc Szalasi, the Hungarian authorities took the opportunity to attempt to take over the houses of Spanish citizens, in which many Jews were hiding. Acting with great haste because he feared the worst, Perlasca managed to convince the Hungarian Minister of the Interior that Sanz Briz had appointed him as his successor.

Perlasca, with the help of a forged document on official letterhead confirming his appointment as a representative of Franco’s government, named himself Spanish Ambassador. He gave the document to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, which accepted it without reservation or comment. Acting immediately, he officially placed the thousands of refugees who had been taken in by Spanish citizens under his protection and, just like Raoul Wallenberg, managed to remove a large number of them from the lists of those who were condemned to death and scheduled to be placed in concentration camps.

”The relatives of all Spaniards in Hungary require their presence in Spain. Until we are able to reestablish communications and the journey back is possible, they will remain here under the protection of the government of Spain” read the letters of protection, based on a 1924 law, that Perlasca used to bestow Spanish citizenship on all Sephardic Jews. With the arrival of the Soviet Red Army in Budapest and the certainty that around 5200 Jews had been saved, Perlasca returned to Italy.

Translation: Stephen Smith

He was replaced by Angel Sanz Briz.

Translation: María Pensavalle ]]> http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/saviors/diplomats/spanish/diplomats-52/miguel-angel-de-muguiro/feed/ 0 http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/saviors/diplomats/spanish/diplomats-52/angel-sanz-briz-594/ http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/saviors/diplomats/spanish/diplomats-52/angel-sanz-briz-594/#comments Wed, 01 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000 admin http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/?p=2825 Sanz Briz (1910, Zaragoza) was a young diplomat during Franco’s regime, who carried out his duties as Spain’s Chargé d´Affaires in Budapest, between the years 1943 and 1944. He managed to accomplish so much during this short time, that he became known as a heroe of humanity.

Without an order from his government, Sanz Briz used all his possible resources to avoid thousands of people from being taken to the Auschwitz and Birkenau gas chambers. He cooperated with Raoul Wallenberg, who later was imprisoned and then disappeared in 1945 captured by the Soviet army; and together with the Papal Nuncio Angelo Rota; the Swiss Consul, Carl Lutz and many other diplomats that together formed a secret mesh that helped to save people.

Amongst his most faithful collaborators was Jorge Perlasca, an Italian friend who proclaimed himself Spanish ambassador when Sanz Briz was obliged to end his mission towards the end of 1944, and who saved thousands from being deported to extermination camps.

Working without pause, thanks to his determination and courage, Sanz Briz issued thousands of letters of protection, which guaranteed immunity to the bearers.

When he was questioned by pro nazi authorities or by Adolf Eichmann himself – in charge of the ”Final Solution” in Hungary- he replied that these were documents to be given only to Sephardic Jews, because Franco´s government acknowledged their right to posses the spanish nationality.

Many years later in Federico Ysart´s book ”Spain and the Jews,” Sanz Briz says, ”I turned the two hundred unities that I had been granted, into two hundred families; the two hundred families multiplied themselves indefinitely, thanks to the simple procedure of not issuing any document or passport with a number higher than 200”.

Of the approximately 5.200 Jews saved by Sanz Briz, only a minority was of Spanish origin.

On October 16th, 1994, a plaque in his memory was uncovered, facing the Parque San Esteban (Saint Stephen’s Park), in one of the houses in Budapest, which had been the refuge of hundreds of Jews. In Spain, his face and name are on a commemorative stamp, part of a series dedicated to human rights.

Translation: María Pensavalle