It is an overstatement to call Hochschild a “Schindler”……Schindler worked under the noses of the Nazis putting his life at risk every single hour. Hochschild was never at risk, but his efforts were noble. I was born in Bolivia where my parents went after my father finished medical school. He was an acolyte of Jabotinsky who told him at a Zionist meeting in Geneva to get out of Europe. My father joined the Bolivian army and fought in the Chaco War where he became the surgeon general. For his military stint he was rewarded with full Bolivian citizenship and government access. He participated in Hochschild’s efforts and was instrumental in persuading the Bolivian government into opening its borders to Jews. To their eternal credit the Bolivians were kind, welcoming, and gave the Jews a haven. rsk
Old files have revealed the story of a businessman hailed as the “Bolivian Schindler” for helping thousands of Jews flee to the South American country to escape the Nazis.
Piles of documents had stood stacked for decades in the headquarters of a mining company formerly run by German Jewish entrepreneur Mauricio Hochschild.
In his time Hochschild was vilified as a ruthless tycoon, but when researchers started sorting through the paperwork decades later, they began to unravel the tale of how he helped Jews flee from persecution in the 1930s.
“He saved many souls from the Holocaust by bringing them to Bolivia and creating jobs for them,” Carola Campos, head of the Bolivian Mining Corporation’s information unit, told AFP.
Along with fellow magnates Victor Aramayo and Simon Patino, Hochschild had his mining company nationalized in 1952 by the Bolivian government. It accused them of plundering the nation by mining its tin reserves for their own profit.
But the documents revealed what else Hochschild had been up to.
They include work contracts drawn up for Jews from Europe by the mining firm in the 1930s, says the head of the corporation’s archives, Edgar Ramirez.
There is a letter from a kindergarten housing Jewish children in La Paz asking for Hochschild’s help to expand the facility “in view of the number of children who are here and others who want to come.”
One letter was from French authorities, asking him to receive a thousand Jewish orphans.
There are letters sent at the time by the British embassy to Hochschild with blacklists of companies linked to the Axis powers, whom he was forbidden to do business with.
Of the many Jews who fled from repression under Adolf Hitler in 1930s Germany, thousands came to Bolivia.
For many it was a stepping stone on to the United States, Brazil, Argentina or Israel.