Peur's consul in Geneva during World War II, José María Barreto became the first Peruvian on Thursday to be named by Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial institution, as Righteous Among the Nations, for helping to save Jews from the Holocaust.
By 1938, the government of Peru had given instructions to all of its consulates in Europe not to issue visas to foreign immigrants, with an emphasis on barring Jews in particular. Abraham Silberschein, the head of RELICO, a Jewish relief organization in Switzerland founded by the World Jewish Congress, originally approached Barreto, the consul general of Peru in Geneva, asking him to issue Peruvian passports for Jews under German occupation.
In the summer of 1943, the Swiss police asked for clarifications from the Peruvian Embassy to explain the issuing of a Peruvian passport to a German Jew by the name of Gunther Frank. Barreto responded in a letter to the Peruvian ambassador that he had issued 27 Peruvian passports to 58 Jews (including 14 children) at the request of the Intellectual Refugee Protection Committee in order to save the lives of people in German concentration camps expected to be sent to death.
After the incident came to the attention of the Peruvian foreign minister, the ministry ordered the cancelation of the passports issued and closure of the Peruvian consulate in Geneva. In addition, Barreto was fired from his position and dismissed from Peru's Foreign Ministry.
In a letter written on 27 August 1943, Silberschein described Barreto's efforts: "Mr. Barreto, deeply moved by the suffering of millions of human beings in the occupied countries, wished to participate in helping to alleviate the plight of these innocent people, and decided to agree and provide us with a certain number of passports so that we could send them to different persons in the countries under German control. Mr. Barreto was convinced that by this highly humane deed he would save a number of people."
The distinction of Righteous Among the Nations has been given to about 25,000 people from 50 countries.
