When you think of diplomats, you might picture tuxedos, fancy receptions, and the occasional parking ticket exemption. Yet, history shows that a handful of truly valiant diplomats put their careers – and sometimes their lives – on the line to rescue Jews from Nazi persecution. Below, we travel from Berlin to Budapest, from Rome to Mexico City, meeting the courageous officials whose bold actions saved tens of thousands of lives during World War II.

Why Valiant Diplomats Matter

These men and women leveraged the privileges of their posts to issue visas, forge documents, and create safe houses. Their deeds remind us that even in the darkest era, a single passport or a well‑timed protest could become a lifeline.

10 Prince Constantin Karadja

From 1931 to 1941, Prince Constantin Karadja served as Romania’s Consul General in Berlin. By issuing hundreds of visas, he is credited with saving an astonishing 51,000 lives—both Romanian and non‑Romanian Jews. Karadja’s legal background made him a fierce defender of human rights, and he wasn’t shy about challenging his own government. On March 7, 1941, he defied orders by marking Romanian passports with a religious indicator, fearing that Jews would be caught while fleeing. Later that year, as Romania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, he helped pass a law that protected all Romanians abroad without discrimination. By 1943, he persuaded the Romanian Foreign Minister to abandon a pro‑German stance. His relentless advocacy eventually cost him his job and a pension, but his legacy endures.

9 Carl Lutz

Swiss vice‑consul Carl Lutz arrived in Budapest in 1942 and immediately rattled Swiss neutrality by inventing a “protective letter” that granted Jews neutral status. He handed these letters to over 10,000 Jewish children, allowing them to escape. When Nazi forces seized Budapest in 1944, Lutz negotiated the protection of 8,000 Hungarian Jews, shifting his focus from individuals to entire families. He established 76 safe houses, declared them Swiss soil, and once sheltered 3,000 Jews in a single building. In a dramatic rescue, he leapt into a raging river to declare a wounded Jewish woman a Swiss citizen, saving her life on the spot. Estimates suggest his efforts saved up to 62,000 lives.

8 Hiram Bingham IV

U.S. Consul Hiram Bingham IV worked out of Marseilles at the war’s outbreak. While Washington discouraged aid to refugees to keep good terms with the Vichy regime, Bingham broke the rule. In 1940, he supplied Varian Fry—an American novelist and member of the Emergency Rescue Committee—with falsified travel documents, enabling Fry to help over 2,000 Jews escape France. Bingham also sheltered refugees, visited internment camps such as Gurs, Le Vernet, Argelès‑sur‑Mer, Agde, and Les Milles, and issued protective orders and visas. He granted American citizenship to camp detainees, placing them under U.S. protection. In 1941, the State Department pulled him from his post, sending him to Argentina, likely to silence his humanitarian work. Later, he helped track down Nazi war criminals.

7 Aracy de Carvalho Guimaraes Rosa

Aracy worked as a clerk in the visa department of Brazil’s embassy in Hamburg. From 1938 until Brazil entered the war in 1942, she defied orders by issuing visas to Jews, personally funding their journeys, and even housing some refugees. Her daring actions are credited with saving thousands of lives. Living to 102, she certainly enjoyed the extra years she helped others secure.

6 Archbishop Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli

Before becoming Pope John XXIII, Archbishop Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli served as Apostolic Delegate to Turkey and Greece. He used his ecclesiastical position to assist the Jewish underground, arranging money, transport, and supplies for refugees fleeing to Palestine. Roncalli also secured false baptismal papers that liberated Jews from the Jasenovac and Sered concentration camps. Later, as Pope, he removed the “deceitful” description of Jews from the Good Friday liturgy and publicly confessed the Church’s anti‑Semitic sins.

5 Selahattin Ulkumen

Turkish consul Selahattin Ulkumen, stationed on Rhodes, stood up to the Nazis when they began deporting Jews on July 19, 1944. He demanded that the Turkish Jews gathered for deportation be released into his custody, invoking Turkey’s protection of its citizens. After extensive bureaucratic pressure, the Gestapo relented, and Ulkumen sheltered the rescued Jews. In retaliation, the Germans bombed the Turkish embassy, killing his pregnant wife and imprisoning Ulkumen and his staff for the war’s remainder. Despite the personal tragedy, his actions saved thousands.

4 Angelo Rotta

As the Vatican’s diplomat in Sofia, Bulgaria, Angelo Rotta issued thousands of false baptismal certificates that granted Jews safe passage to Palestine. When he later became dean of the diplomatic corps in Budapest, he continued his crusade, condemning the Holocaust from Hitler’s backyard. Rotta produced over 15,000 safe‑conduct certificates, visited labor camps and death marches to hand out more falsified documents, and set up numerous safe houses throughout Budapest to protect those he saved.

3 Friedrich Born

Swiss Red Cross delegate Friedrich Born operated in Budapest from May 1944 to January 1945. Following Carl Lutz’s lead, he recruited about 3,000 Jews to “work” in his office, granting them protection, and declared various safe houses as Red Cross‑protected zones. Born also distributed 15,000 protection documents that prevented the deportation of Hungarian Jews, ultimately saving between 11,000 and 15,000 lives at great personal risk.

2 Gilberto Bosques Saldivar

Mexican consul Gilberto Bosques Saldivar ran the Mexican consulate in Vichy‑controlled Marseilles. He directed his staff to issue visas to anyone seeking refuge—most were Jews—resulting in over 40,000 visas. Bosques even rented a castle and a holiday camp to house refugees under Mexican protection. In 1943, the Gestapo arrested him, his family, and 40 staff members, detaining them for a year before a prisoner exchange secured their release. He lived to 103, a testament to his enduring spirit.

1 Jose Castellanos Contreras

Salvadoran consul Jose Castellanos Contreras began his rescue work in Switzerland by granting a visa to a Transylvanian Jewish businessman, saving the family from a Gestapo roundup. After becoming General Consul in Geneva in 1942, he issued thousands of visas to Jewish refugees, enabling their escape to South America. By 1944, his office was mass‑producing Salvadoran documents, even helping Jewish groups forge illegal copies to expand the rescue effort. Realizing the limits of official channels, Contreras secretly issued 13,000 “Certificates of Salvadoran citizenship” to Jews in Central Europe for free—an unprecedented move for a South American nation. Historians estimate his actions saved between 30,000 and 50,000 lives.