Special to WJW

El Salvador isn't typically remembered as a savior of Jews escaping the Nazi death machine. But that Central American nation's ambassador to the United States, Rene Leon, is hoping "to solve the collective historical gap."

He and other Salvadoran officials have begun publicizing the work of Col. Jose Arturo Castellanos and George Mandel-Mantello, who produced and distributed Salvadoran citizenship papers to more than 25,000 European Jews from 1942 to 1945, allowing them to escape deportation to Nazi camps.

With these certificates, Leon said, "thousands of Jewish people were granted a new nationality from a tiny country they did not know to exist before. They were given a chance to save their lives."

Speaking at an embassy press conference on Wednesday of last week, Leon and other Salvadoran officials announced they have wrapped up a three-year historical investigation on Castellanos, who died in 1977 at age 86, and will ask Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem, to bestow upon him the posthumous title, "Righteous Among the Nations."

Mantello, a Romanian-born Jew, is ineligible for the title, which can be awarded only to non-Jewish persons who risked life, freedom or safety to save Jews in the Holocaust. He died in 1992 at age 91, without ever stepping on El Salvadoran soil.

Castellanos and Mantello worked as a team, according to Salvadorian Leonor Avila Marlowe, who, with her husband, Brad, directed and produced Glass House, a documentary about the two heroes. "Mantello was the motor and the passion," she said, "and Castellanos became the means."

Glass House had its first public screening last Thursday at Washington Hebrew Congregation in D.C. Among those appearing in the film are Castellanos' daughter, Frieda Garcia, 59, and Mantello's son, Enrico Mandel-Martello, 78, who as a teenager witnessed many of the events. Both were in town for last week's events.

Mantello (born George Mandel) had been a textile manufacturer in Budapest when he first met Castellanos in the late 1930s. By 1941, in trouble with the Nazis, Mandel sought out Castellanos, the Salvadoran general consul to Switzerland.

Castellanos gave Mandel a Salvadoran passport and created a special post for him as consulate first secretary. At this point, Mandel, who spoke no Spanish, decided to add the more Latin-sounding "Mantello" to his surname.

Mantello's humanitarian interests were awakened when, in 1942, he was approached by a French-Jewish refugee seeking money to buy false documents for a number of Jews who needed to leave France. Mantello proposed to Castellanos that they provide Salvadoran passports for free; Castellanos agreed, but suggested that citizenship papers would arouse less suspicion.

Initially, Mantello conducted his activities on a small scale, producing papers for scattered Jews in France, Belgium and Holland; before long, the requests for assistance began to multiply. When the Nazis occupied Hungary in 1944 and conditions worsened for that nation's sizable Jewish population, Mantello expanded his operations. With Castellanos' approval, Mantello formed a liaison with Charles Lutz, the Swiss consul in Budapest, and began distributing false papers to thousands of Hungarian Jews.

Castellanos also worked to secure agreement from the Swiss government to represent El Salvador's interests in Hungary, specifically, to protect the ever-growing ranks of Salvadoran "citizens" living there.

In the end, an estimated 25,000-30,000 Jews, protected by their El Salvadoran citizenship, were able to remain in Hungary and escape deportation, thanks to Castellanos, Mandel and the other Salvadoran, Swiss and Hungarian officials they enlisted to their cause.

Leon expressed pride that the smallest country in Central America played a major role in saving lives: "When powerful, bigger and stronger countries turned their face away from the genocide, a very small country like El Salvador É opened the door for thousands of Jews to a safe haven."

"Until 20 years ago, we knew nothing of this story," noted Jean Claude (Claudio) Kahn, who heads up El Salvador's 75-family Jewish community who was in town for last week's events. Kahn expressed regret that Castellanos was never honored during his lifetime.

Garcia emphasized that her father was a modest man who did not desire recognition for the lives he saved. "He always said, 'Anybody in my position would have done the same.' "

The American Jewish Committee co-sponsored last week's events and is supporting Castellanos' application before Yad Vashem. Dina Siegel Vann, director of AJCommittee's Latino and Latin American Institute, praised Castellanos' leadership and example, noting that El Salvador was the only country to offer Jews citizenship during the war.

A second-generation Mexican Jew, she acknowledged "a debt of gratitude to Latin America for receiving our grandparents in difficult time," yet added: "There are few cases of Latin American countries saving Jews in the Holocaust; and too many provided haven to Nazi war criminals."

Meanwhile, the producers of Glass House hope their film not only will spread the story of Castellanos' and Mantello's heroism, but also inspire a new generation of leaders to stand up against present-day injustice. Produced independently without outside funding, Glass House has been shown at Jewish and Latino film festivals. The producers are seeking opportunities for broader distribution.

The film's title refers to a glass factory in Budapest that functioned as Lutz base of command. The building also served as a refuge for the city's Jewish community, housing as many as 4,000 people at a time while they awaited the precious life-saving documents smuggled in from Geneva.