Israel will Honor an Ecuadorian that Helped Jews During the Holocaust

The Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, will honor tomorrow to Ecuadorian Manuel Antonio Muñoz Borrero with the title “Righteous among the Nations” for his contribution to save Jews during the Second World War.

The event will take place on the premises of the Museum in the presence of a son of the honoree, Lennart Bjelke, to whom the institution will give a medal and a certificate of honor on behalf of his late father, who will be the first Ecuadorian to receive this distinction, according to an official statement, Efe reported.

The title is given by the Museum, which recalls the memory of six million Jews murdered by the Nazis, to anyone who has helped to save Jewish people. So far there have been honored more than 17,000, most of them Polish.

According to the testimonies presented to the institution, Manuel Antonio Muñoz Borrero, born in the Ecuadorian city of Cuenca in 1891, was his country’s consul in Stockholm from 1931, and ten years after that he sent 80 passports to Istanbul in order to help saving Jews of Polish origin.

Almost none of those who received new passports survived because the Swedish secret police interrupted the initiative, but some of them who survived testified to the museum and requested a recognition. (FO)

Source: El Universal – Photo by Daily El Universo