George Mandel-Mantello; Saved Thousands of European Jews

George Mandel-Mantello, 90, a businessman who helped stop Nazi deportation of thousands of Jews from Hungary during World War II. Born a Jew in Romania, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Mandel-Mantello was an “unsung hero” of the war, said David Kranzler, history professor emeritus at the City University of New York. With the backing of El Salvador, which he dealt with in his business, Mandel-Mantello was able to give citizenship papers and passports to tens of thousands of people, mainly Jews, from across Eastern Europe. Mandel-Mantello also helped get detailed accounts by Jewish escapees from the Auschwitz death camp published in Swiss papers. The stories, picked up by the international media, prompted the Allies, the Vatican and neutral countries to pressure Hungary to stop deporting Jews in 1944. In Rome on April 25.