The Romanian diplomat who defied the Nazis and rests in a Buenos Aires cemetery

In a corner of the British Cemetery of Buenos Aires rest the remains of a man who defied the Nazis and chose Argentina to live. He is Florin Manoliu, a Romanian diplomat who during World War II was part of a rescue network that saved the lives of hundreds of Jews and helped spread the horrors of Auschwitz for the first time. This Sunday, at the place where he has been buried since 1977, a tribute will be held to remember his story, almost unknown to the general public.

Manoliu was born in Iasi, Romania, on March 7, 1904. He studied law in his country and later graduated as an economist in Paris. In July 1943, in the midst of the war, he was appointed economic counselor at the Romanian embassy in Bern, Switzerland. At that time, Romania was governed by Ion Antonescu, a dictator allied with Nazi Germany. But Manoliu, deeply anti-Nazi, aligned himself with those who resisted from the shadows.

In Switzerland, he made contact with anti-fascist activists, including Georg Mandl, a Hungarian Jewish merchant who worked at the Salvadoran consulate in Geneva. Mandl, who Latinized his surname to Mantello, had convinced Consul José Arturo Castellanos to issue Salvadoran citizenship certificates for persecuted Jews. These documents, which granted diplomatic protection, could mean the difference between life and death. It is estimated that about five thousand certificates were issued.

In May 1944, Mantello learned that the Jews of Transylvania were being deported. Worried about his relatives in Bistrita, he asked Manoliu to travel there with Salvadoran citizenship documents. He also gave him another thousand certificates to deliver to the Swiss consul in Budapest. The mission was extremely dangerous: traveling through enemy territory, where helping Jews could cost one’s life.

Manoliu left on May 22, 1944. Shortly after, the Gestapo arrested him in Vienna. Fortunately, minutes earlier he had handed over the certificates to an old university friend, the Romanian consul in Vienna, to take them to Budapest as diplomatic baggage. Taken to Berlin for interrogation, Manoliu did not break down. Furious, he shouted at his interrogators that he did not understand his arrest, since Romania and Germany were allies. The Nazis let him go, on the condition that he travel only to Bucharest. But Manoliu disobeyed and headed to Bistrita.

Upon arrival, he discovered that the town where Mantello’s relatives lived had been declared Judenrein (cleansed of Jews). A German soldier told him that everyone had been taken out by trains. Manoliu did not know the final destination, but he understood that nothing good awaited them. He continued his journey to Budapest, where he delivered the certificates to Swiss Vice Consul Carl Lutz, contributing to saving many Hungarian Jews. But in addition, Lutz put him in contact with Miklos Krausz, representative of the Jewish agency, who gave him a summarized version of the Auschwitz Protocol, the first detailed report on the extermination camp.

Manoliu took that report to Switzerland, where it was disseminated. His journey, full of risks, allowed the world to learn the magnitude of the Nazi horror. After the war, tired and seeking peace, he emigrated to Argentina. He settled in Bahía Blanca, where he was a university professor. For two decades, he lived as a discreet neighbor, without boasting of his heroic past. In 2001, he received the distinction «Righteous Among the Nations» from Yad Vashem, the highest honor for non-Jews who saved lives during the Holocaust.

This Sunday at 11 a.m., a tribute will be held at the British Cemetery of Buenos Aires, where he has rested since 1977. The ceremony seeks to remember a man who, from the shadows, defied Nazism and chose Argentina as his final home. A story that deserves to be told, so that it is not lost in oblivion.

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