Manoliu Florian

Manoliu, Florian Florian Manoliu, a diplomat who had already served for 18 years in the Romanian Foreign Service, was opposed Nazism and the pro-Nazi line adopted by his country’s government under the leadership of Ion Antonescu. In 1941, when he was an economic counselor in the Romanian Embassy in Vichy France, he was stopped by the Germans on the border between the two parts of the country with classified material that he was taking to the Turkish Legation in Vichy. For this breach of explicit German orders, he was reprimanded by the Romanian Foreign Ministry and recalled to Romania. There, as a member of the Foreign Ministry’s economic department, he worked to limit the business relations between Romania and Germany. From July 1943 until September 1944, Florian Manoliu was the economic counselor in the Rumanian Embassy in Bern, Switzerland. He took advantage of his position to liaise between Iuliu Maniu, the leader of the National Peasant Party, who headed the opposition to Ion Antonescu, and the former Romanian Foreign Minister, Grigore Gafencu, now a political exile in Switzerland and an activist against the Fascist government in his homeland. This activity was enabled thanks to Florian’s friendship with the Romanian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Mihai Antonescu, who at that stage no longer believed in a German victory. With a view to the postwar world, he sought an alibi for himself and accordingly allowed the regime’s opponents freedom of action. In 1943, George Mandel-Mantello, a Jew, who was the First Secretary in the El Salvador consulate in Geneva and was active in rescuing Jews, began issuing El Salvador documents to protect Jews under German occupation who were in danger of deportation. Following a request by the United States to Switzerland, which represented American interests in Hungary, the Swiss Legation in Budapest recognized the documents issued by Mandel-Mantello. His aim was to transfer about a thousand such documents toBudapest Jews via his friend, Florian Manoliu. The latter sought permission to pass through Hungary on his way to home leave, because as a diplomat he would not be subject to border inspections and would be able to deliver the documents. Mandel-Mantello also asked Florian to find out what he could about the situation of the Jews of Transylvania, and in particular about the fate of his parents, who lived in the city of Besztece, annexed to Hungary (today Bistriţa, Romania). In May 1944, Florian received a permit to pass through Hungary. However, the Germans, suspicious of him, arrested him in Vienna and sent him to Berlin for further questioning. At the time of his arrest, he managed to transfer the diplomatic bag with the El Salvador papers to the Romanian Ambassador to Vienna, who was at the train station to meet him. A week later, following the intercession of the Romanian authorities, Florian Manoliu was released, reclaimed the bag, and set out for Besztece, in explicit violation of the conditions of the travel permit he had received from the Germans. He reached Besztece on June 10 but did not find one Jew there, as the entire Jewish population had been deported to Auschwitz. He then proceeded to Budapest, where he gave most of Mandel-Mantello’s papers to the Swiss Consul-General, Carl Lutz, who was working to rescue Hungarian Jews. Florian also made contact with Moshe (Miklós) Krausz, who represented the Jewish Agency in Budapest and operated from the Swiss Consulate under Lutz’s protection. Through Florian Manoliu, Krausz sent the Vrba-Wetzler Auschwitz Protocol to Chaim Pozner, Head of the Immigration (Aliyah) Department of the Jewish Agency operating in Geneva, informing him about the mass murders being perpetrated at Auschwitz. On June 21, 1944, Florian returned to Switzerland and passed on the reports he had been given by Krausz to Chaim Pazner, a senior Jewish Agency official in Geneva, and to Mandel-Mantello, whom he also informed about the fate of hisparents and of Transylvanian Jewry as a whole. Florian helped Mandel-Mantello confirm the information by appearing before the Swiss-Hungarian Committee in Switzerland with the aim of making the reports about the murder of the Jews known worldwide. Florian Manoliu put himself at risk a number of times to rescue Jews and disseminate information about the Nazis’ murder program. After the war, Florian was ordered to join the ruling Communist Party in Romania. When he refused, his career effectively came to a halt, and in July 1947 he was arrested and his property confiscated. Florian Manoliu left his homeland and with his diplomatic passport reached Prague and from there to Switzerland, where he asked for political asylum. Half a year later, he moved with his family to Italy and from there to Argentina, where he became a university lecturer, reaching the rank of professor. Florian Manoliu died in 1974. On July 12, 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Florian Manoliu as Righteous Among the Nations.