Paris, 2016
I succeeded in what was my life goal at the time […] I was working only on Consul Radigales, his life, and all that he had achieved
It is important for me to tell you, after I describe in depth the situation of my family, our whole family and the team we managed to assemble in Barcelona, that all this is thanks to a single person, to the General Consul of Spain in Athens, Sebastián de Romero Radigales. In 2010, the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation prepared a file, proposing to Yad Vashem that Radigales be recognised as Righteous Among the Nations. This is why they needed the testimony of a survivor and they asked me if I would like to participate.
I accepted to prepare this testimony and thanks to my cousin, Nina Benrubi who lives in Thessaloniki [Nina passed away in 2018, see https://greekjewsholocaustsurvivors.art/profile/nina_benroubi/], in 2010 I met the granddaughter of Radigales. We discussed it and decided that I should give this testimony. And I did, I wrote my testimony and in June 2010 sent it to the Wallenberg Foundation, where the Yad Vashem file was completed. Two hours later, we received a response from Yad Vashem stating that this was a very interesting case, that Radigales appeared to be a truly kind person, who chose not to ignore the desperate state of the persecuted Jews without reacting. But they explained to us, that we had not clearly stated, meaning I had not made it clear, that Radigales acted contrary to the orders received from the Foreign Minister of Spain Hordana, a pro-Nazi.
So, I thought about it and said to the person in charge of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem that I would draft a new document, in which I would lay down the facts, the events that proved that Radigales had acted contrary to the orders of the Spanish government. And thanks to the Centro Sefarad-Israel, a Madrid based organisation dedicated to preserving the memory of the persecution of the Jews during the war, organises annually Shoah commemoration events as well as educational seminars for teachers… So, thanks to the Centro Sefarad-Israel I was granted access to the telegrams that Radigales had exchanged with his minister from April 1943 to November 1944.
The Centro Sefarad-Israel hired an historian to study the archives of the Foreign Ministry where the telegrams were kept. So, they handed me the thirty telegrams that he could find, he sent them to me saying “Isaac, here are the telegrams but I do not think that you can achieve what you are aiming for.” So I took the telegrams, I drafted a new memo to Yad Vashem, explaining that the career of Radigales was adversely affected [through his actions in favour of the Spanish Jews of Thessaloniki], that this was the reason why Radigales was not promoted, and in 2013, in January of 2013, I sent to Yad Vashem my review of the telegrams and all the information that I had collected on Radigales.
In February of 2014, Sebastián de Romero Radigales was recognised by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations. I succeeded in achieving what was my life goal at the time, because I had decided that this was my sole purpose in life since I stopped working. I was not interested in science anymore, I was working only on Consul Radigales, his life, and all that he had achieved. So, I could draft my testimony-memo that would allow, along with the application filed by the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, for him to receive this title. I must thank the Centro Sefarad-Israel, Elena Colitto-Castelli, the Consul’s granddaughter, who also greatly assisted me and at the same time the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation for its constant support.
[…]
There is a point that I failed to mention, that Radigales received the title of Righteous on 26 February 2014 and that Yad Vashem organized a ceremony in Jerusalem for the recognition of Radigales as Righteous Among the Nations and presented his granddaughter with the medal and the honorary title. This exceptional ceremony was attended by many, among those were the Ambassador of Spain to Israel, the Chairman of the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous, Haim Avni, the Israeli historian who in 1980 wrote a book about Franco and the Jews, Yehuda Saporta, a Bergen-Belsen survivor who lives in Israel, [https://greekjewsholocaustsurvivors.art/profile/yehuda_saporta/], my sister Lela Sadai and friends who live in Israel.
In addition, distinguished individuals were invited by the Ambassador of Spain in Tel Aviv, Miguel de Lucas, Director of the Centro Sefarad-Israel, as well as Danny Reiner, Director of the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation in Jerusalem. During the ceremony, speeches were made highlighting the altruism of Radigales and his efforts in trying and succeeding to rescue us from the Bergen-Belsen camp.
During this ceremony, the Director of the Department for the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem took the floor and explained how she had guided us to collect the evidence proving the actions of Radigales, and I am truly grateful to her. In addition, Haim Avni spoke as did the Consul’s granddaughter. I said a few words about my involvement. The event closed with the speech of the Spanish Ambassador, who stressed how happy he was that his country honoured a Spanish Consul for his actions during the war, even though his ministry forbade him from getting involved in the rescue and repatriation of this group. The ceremony was very moving, when at the end we could see inscribed on the Wall of the Righteous Among the Nations the name of Sebastián de Romero Radigales.
Ever since that day, I have been invited to Spain on a regular basis, three or four times a year, in order to attend conferences and add my testimony on the same subject, conferences organised by the Centro Sefarad-Israel. We went to Seville, I went to Seville, to Barcelona, to Madrid, to Graus, a village in the Pyrenees, where the consul was born, we went to Avila, near Madrid, where significant conferences and commemoration events of the Shoah take place every year, organised by a very active municipality.
We went to Segovia and in truth I have given more talks in Spanish than in French. In French from time to time, I give talks at the Mémorial de la Shoah, I was also invited by the Spanish high school in Neuilly and by a Spanish school in Paris and spoke to high school students. I also went for a talk to Nice in 2016 and another time I spoke in Paris at the Association on Jewish Freedom about Radigales and his actions for the rescue of the Spanish Jews of Greece.
I really had given many talks in France, but more, I think, many more in Spain, in Spanish and I am relieved each time to see that at my age I still manage to speak Spanish without too many mistakes, because this is something one forgets. And in fact, thanks to the Consul I was reminded of my Spanish and I feel closer to the Spanish language, and when I find myself in Barcelona or Madrid and I hear people speaking in Spanish, I feel at home…Just as I feel about France, and it always gives me great satisfaction to be able to go to Spain and speak about the brave acts of Radigales.