George Mantello | |
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| Born | György Mandl 11 December 1901 |
| Died | 25 April 1992 (aged 90) Rome, Italy |
| Resting place | Jerusalem, Israel |
| Known for | Rescue of Jews during the Holocaust |
| Children | 3 |
George Mantello (born György Mandl; 11 December 1901 – 25 April 1992), a businessman with various diplomatic activities, born into a Jewish family from Transylvania, helped save thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust while working for the Salvadoran consulate in Geneva, Switzerland from 1942 to 1945 under the protection of consul Castellanos Contreras, by providing them with fictive Salvadoran citizenship papers. He publicized in mid-1944 the deportation of Hungarian Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, which had great impact on rescue, rapidly led to unprecedented large-scale grass root protests by the Swiss people and church, which was a major contributing factor to Hungary's regent Miklós Horthy stopping the transports to Auschwitz.
During Mantello's youth, Transylvania was part of Hungary, itself part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; after the First World War it became part of Romania, but in 1940 Hungary recovered the northern part of the historical region, including Mantello's birth region, thanks to the Second Vienna Award. Both Hungary and Romania were allies of Nazi Germany, and Mantello had to first use all his remarkable skills and connections to save himself, his wife and his child from Nazi deportation by escaping to Switzerland.
Mantello is buried in the Jerusalem Har Hamenuchot cemetery.