The Long Overdue Recognition of Spanish Diplomat and Humanitarian — Eduardo Propper de Callejón
In the early hours of June 8th, 1940, Parisians were awoken by the first distant sound of German artillery.
Just 48-hours later, the French Government fled Paris for Bordeaux and, following swiftly on its heels, were the panicked legations of several foreign states.
Whereas most consuls and diplomats returned home to their respective nations, Eduardo Propper de Callejón of the Spanish embassy was one of the very few who chose to stay.
As the son of a Czechoslovakian Jewish father — and as the husband of a Franco-Austrian Jewish wife — Eduardo was deeply disturbed by the violent persecution of Jews in Hitler’s Reich.
Further troubled by the knowledge that so many who attempted to leave had been denied refuge in safe countries, the first thing he did when he arrived in Bordeaux, was to formulate a plan that would enable him to evacuate as many Jews as he could to his own.
To that end, he knew that if he was to succeed in his humanitarian endeavor, he would have no choice but to work in defiance of his own foreign minister — Ramón Serrano Suñer — who, as a well-known Nazi apologist, with strong anti-Semitic views, unofficially forbade assistance being afforded to fleeing Jews.
