The Geneva Deception: How a Diplomat Defied the Nazis to Save 40,000 Lives

In 1942, two men turned paperwork into the most powerful weapon against the Holocaust.Colonel José Arturo Castellanos never intended to become a hero. As El Salvador’s consul in Geneva, he was supposed to process routine diplomatic business—not forge thousands of documents to save Jewish refugees from Nazi death camps.But when desperate families began appearing at his door, Castellanos faced an impossible choice: follow orders and watch innocents die, or risk everything to fight evil with nothing more than ink and official seals.Based on the incredible true story that Hollywood has yet to discover, The Geneva Deception reveals how a Latin American diplomat and a Hungarian businessman created one of World War II’s most successful rescue operations, saving 40,000 lives through bureaucratic brilliance and quiet courage.What readers are calling “Schindler’s List meets The Spy Who Came in from the Cold”:The untold story of history’s most unlikely heroesHow ordinary paperwork became extraordinary resistanceThe moral courage required to choose conscience over careerA rescue operation that outwitted Nazi intelligence for three yearsWorking eighteen hours a day from a small consulate office, Castellanos and his partner George Mantello transformed official documents into lifelines, turning El Salvador—a country most refugees had never heard of—into their path to freedom. But as their success grew, so did the attention from Nazi hunters determined to shut them down.Perfect for readers who loved:The Tattooist of AuschwitzAll the Light We Cannot SeeThe Book ThiefThe NightingaleThis is the story of what happens when ordinary people refuse to stand by while evil triumphs—and how the decision to help strangers becomes the most important choice of a lifetime.”A masterpiece of moral courage that reads like a thriller but carries the weight of history.”From the author: Every family in this story represents real people who survived because two men decided that saving lives mattered more than following rules. Their example remains urgently relevant in our world of refugees and moral choices.