Barreto José

Barreto, Jose Maria During the 1930s Peru suffered from effects of the world-wide economic crisis, and the government enacted legislation strongly restricting immigration to the country. On May 18, 1940, immigration was totally forbidden, and the life of immigrants who had previously entered the country was restricted, harshly limiting their economic activities. Moreover, a xenophobic attitude prevailed, directed mostly toward the Chinese and Japanese, who constituted the largest groups of immigrants. When President Roosevelt convened the Evian Conference in July 1938 to discuss the problem of the refugees—mostly Jews—from Germany, Peru initially refused to participate, accepting the invitation only later. Though the country’s delegate expressed sympathy for the victims of suffering, he joined the other delegates in refraining from proposing any practical solution to the refugees’ plight. On September 17, 1938, the American consul in Lima reported that Peru had instructed its diplomatic delegations to refuse visas to Jews. No exceptions were made to this policy, and in 1942, after the deportations to the death camps began, Peru’s government rejected a request of the local Jewish community to grant entry to 50 Jewish children from France. Thus, between 1933 and 1943, only 536 Jews were able to immigrate to Peru. The attitude and activity of Jose Maria Barreto, Peru’s consul general in Geneva, stands in stark contrast to his country’s immigration policy. Abraham Silberschein, the head of RELICO, a Jewish relief organization in Switzerland funded by the World Jewish Congress, approached Barreto, asking him to issue Peruvian passports for Jews under German occupation. “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,” wrote Silberschein in a letter dated August 27, 1943. “Mr. Barreto was convinced that by this highly humane deed he would save a number of people.” When one of the persons who had received the passports reached Switzerland, his travel document raised suspicion, and the Swiss police informed the Peruvian embassy in Bern that a German Jew by the name of Günther Frank had arrived in Switzerland with a Peruvian passport issued by the consulate of Peru in Geneva. The police enquired whether the passport was genuine. The embassy referred the inquiry to the ministry in Lima, which responded that the passport had been issued contrary to standing instructions. The ministry reiterated that no passports or visas were to be granted to persons who had not been born in Peru or who had Peruvian citizenship, as per instructions that had already been issued in 1938 prohibiting the immigration of foreigners, and of Jews in particular, to Peru. Upon receiving this response the embassy in Bern instructed the consulate in Geneva to submit a list of passports and visas that Consul General Barreto had issued. Barreto complied, and in his letter of August 10, 1943, he provided the list, which was comprised of 16 Peruvian citizens, one Swiss citizen who had been granted a visa with the permission of the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and 27 passports issued to a total of 58 persons, including 14 children. He explained that this had been done in the attempt to help persecuted Jews in concentration camps, who were otherwise in mortal danger. Barreto added that he hoped that the ambassador would take the special circumstances into consideration and would act with understanding and thoughtfulness. The ambassador of Peru in Bern forwarded the list to Lima, asking for instructions, adding that the 27 passports “had all been issued without permission to Jews in concentration camps” and that the consul’s motivation had been humanitarian. The response was cabled a week later, on August 19, 1943, signed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs: “1) Urgent. Inform the Swiss government that the passports issued by our consul general in Geneva are annulled and that they should be returned to us. Send us the details of each passport so that their bearers will be denied entry to Peru. 2) Barreto’s position is canceled, he is to be dismissed and the consulate in Geneva should be closed.” Barreto said that he had handed the passports over to Fanny Schulthess, the head of the Geneva-based Comité Internationale pour le placement des intellectuels Réfugiés. Schulthess was consequently detained by the Swiss police and interrogated about her involvement in obtaining Peruvian passports to save Jews. The official letter of dismissal followed on August 24, 1943, accusing Barreto of “issuing passports to foreigners whose entry to Peru had been forbidden to protect public interest and that the reasons he had given for his conduct were contrary to existing instructions.” Abraham Silberschein wrote to the Nuncio in Bern, Filippo Bernardini, asking him to intervene with the government of Peru on behalf of Barreto, but to no avail. The attempt to rescue Jews from death ended Barreto’s diplomatic career. On March 4, 2014, Yad Vashem recognized Jose Maria Barreto as Righteous Among the Nations.