José Castellanos Contreras

José Arturo Castellanos Contreras (23 December 1893 — 18 June 1977) was a Salvadoran Army colonel and diplomat who, while working as El Salvador's Consul General for Geneva during World War II, and in conjunction with Jewish-Romanian businessman György Mandl, helped save up to 40,000 Central European Jews, most of them from Hungary, from Nazi persecution by providing them with fake Salvadoran citizenship certificates.

Public life and achievements Castellanos was born in the provincial city of San Vicente to General Adelino Castellanos and Isabel Contreras de Castellanos. Beginning in 1911, when he entered the Military Polytechnic School, Castellanos would spend over 25 active years in the Salvadoran military, eventually achieving the rank of Second Chief of the General Staff of the Army of the Republic.

The writer Leon Uris tracked down the retired diplomat in 1972 and interviewed him. This attracted the attention of the Salvadoran media, and Castellanos gave another brief radio interview in 1976, but otherwise he remained anonymous and his contribution went unrecognised until well after his death in 1977.

After the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Jewish Community of El Salvador have both applied to Israel's Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority", José Arturo Castellanos Contreras was recognized with the title of "Righteous Among the Nations" by Yad Vashem in 2010.

Colonel Castellanos' grandsons Alvaro Castellanos and Boris Castellanos composed and wrote THE RESCUE - A Live Film-Concerto (An Expanded Cinema Documentary work by Alvaro Castellanos and Boris Castellanos). It is a performative film experience that combines a 60-minute documentary film with a live musical performance of its musical soundtrack, to recount the story of Colonel Castellanos.

Personal life Castellanos married Maria Schürmann, a native of Switzerland, with whom he had a daughter and two sons: Frieda, Paul Andree, and José Arturo Castellanos Jr.

After the war, Castellanos lived a quiet life and played down his role.