Colonel José Arturo Castellanos Contreras, Consul General for El Salvador in Geneva, Switzerland, 1942-45

Colonel José Arturo Castellanos Contreras was the Salvadoran Consul General in Geneva, Switzerland in 1942-45. 

Castellanos appointed George Mandel-Mantello, a Romanian Jewish refugee living in Geneva, as the First Secretary at his consulate.  He authorized Mantello to issue thousands of "citizen certificates" to Jewish refugees throughout Nazi occupied Europe.  These certificates stated that the holder was a citizen of El Salvador who was then protected from deportation.  (The president of El Salvador, Castenedu, had previously agreed to this arrangement.)  These documents were couriered by Romanian diplomat Florian Manoliu to Budapest and were distributed by Swiss Vice Consul Carl Lutz.  In 1944, Castellanos requested that Switzerland represent El Salvador's interests in Nazi occupied Hungary.