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Created on: August 31, 2009 Last Updated: September 01, 2009
When we were all kids, we wanted to at some point resist the tyranny that was our parents. We never really acted on it because of the numbers game and our lack of critical thinking to make us justify our conviction. Deep inside we knew that what we were fighting for was in our best interest, but if we had the qualities to resist, we would have. As adults we begin to meet people with a common cause and are able to plan a course of action that hits the opposition's consciousness.
This is exactly what had to have happened for all the great resistance movement of our time. Jesus' resistance against the Jewish Clerics/Roman Empire, anti-slave rebellion movement in America and the Irish Catholic Movement in Ireland. None was as palpable and far reaching than the Jewish resistance against the Nazis.
The movement in Nazi occupied Hungary received help from other countries. Initially, help came not from the U.S., England or Russia but from the tiny central American country of El Salvador. Instead of a Superpower, help came in the form of a Jewish Diplomat in the Salvadoran Consulate named George Mandel and a Salvadoran Colonel/Diplomat in the Salvadoran Consulate named Jose Arturo Castellanos. Castellanos upon hearing about the genocide of Mandel's people put their heads together and sought to evacuate as many Jews as they could out of Europe and brought to El Salvador. They did this by forging Salvadoran Citizenship papers for thousands of Jews in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Romania.
Before the Allies finally reigned down their military might upon the Nazis, the ideas of George Mandel and Jose Arturo Castellanos became the template for resistance across all of Eastern Europe.
Many would see this as a heroic act by two individuals who had plenty to lose from their positions within the government, but who also felt more would have been lost by not using their positions to help. Credit should never be taken away from these two individuals, but it would also be naive to think that El Salvador, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Romania didn't officially put their stamp of approval on this plan. Credit needs to also be given to the leaders of these countries that saw an atrocity before their eyes and took action.
It has come to symbolize the most organic of all resistances because of its membership. These members were hardly ex military leaders, union organizers, ex governmental leaders who map, organize and have the credibility to back up their actions. These resistance fighters
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