In the early 1930s, with the support of the Guatemalan strongman Ubíco and the El Salvadoran dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, Honduran dictator Tiburcio Carías Andino prevails against the Liberal Party in internal power struggles, without being able to count on help from a strong military. Carías uses his own secret police to suppress any opposition, and leaves control of the Atlantic coast plantation region – the actual economic power center – to the American United Fruit Company.
Although immigration conditions for Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria are less restrictive here than in Panama (for example, one does not have to provide evidence of wealth on arrival, and entry is, at least for a while, possible without a visa), only about 100 refugees enter this Central American state.
* 23 December 1912 Guatemala † 1975 USA
Starting in 1934, Mauricio Claudio Rosal Bron – a citizen of Guatemala – works as a secretary in his country’s legation in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa. He soon becomes popular in that city’s social circles.
In 1937 he becomes a Honduran citizen in order to marry Marta Carías, daughter of Honduran president Tiburcio Carías Andino, that autumn. Thereupon he is appointed honorary Honduran consul in Berlin, becoming professional consul there in 1932. In the spring of 1938, Rosal becomes Honduras’s permanent representative to the League of Nations in Geneva, and in this capacity represents his country at the Évian Conference.
He then goes to France as a consul, where he is assigned as diplomat to the collaborationist Vichy government in 1940. In 1944 he is among the signatories of a “Manifiesto del Comité Liberal Demócrata de Honduras en México,” which is directed against his father-in-law, the military dictator Tiburcio Carías Andino.
Later, Rosal becomes a Guatemalan citizen again and in 1958 is named the private secretary of President Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes, who rises to power in rigged elections. The president appoints Rosal ambassador to Belgium and the Netherlands in 1959.
On October 3, 1960, on a trip from Brussels to Guatemala, Rosal is arrested by an American drug squad during a stopover in New York after 224 pounds of heroin are found in his luggage. The District Court for the Southern District of New York sentences him to 15 years in prison.
Delegates of Central America (right: Mauricio Rosal Bron)
Jüdische Presszentrale Zürich, July 15, 1938 / Archiv für Zeitgeschichte / ETH Zürich
Delegates of Central America (right: Mauricio Rosal Bron)
Jüdische Presszentrale Zürich, July 15, 1938 / Archiv für Zeitgeschichte / ETH Zürich
“Nothing applies to the Prophet in his own country …,” Nuestro Diario, Guatemala, December 6, 1937
The Guatemalan press looks askance at Rosal’s citizenship change, his appointment as Honorary Honduran Consul in Berlin and the payment of his travel expenses from the state treasury, as ordered by the president.
Auswärtiges Amt / Politisches Archiv, Berlin, R 119783
“Nothing applies to the Prophet in his own country …,” Nuestro Diario, Guatemala, December 6, 1937
The Guatemalan press looks askance at Rosal’s citizenship change, his appointment as Honorary Honduran Consul in Berlin and the payment of his travel expenses from the state treasury, as ordered by the president.
Auswärtiges Amt / Politisches Archiv, Berlin, R 119783
Joint declaration made by Dr. Constantino Herdocia, delegate of the Republic of Nicaragua, Professor Luis Dobles Segreda, delegate of the Republic of Costa Rica, Dr. Mauricio Rosal, delegate of the Republic of Honduras, and Dr. Ernst Hoffmann, delegate of the Republic of Panama, on behalf of their Governments to the Intergovenmental Committee, Evian, July 11, 1938, 11am, p. 1/2
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY
Joint declaration made by Dr. Constantino Herdocia, delegate of the Republic of Nicaragua, Professor Luis Dobles Segreda, delegate of the Republic of Costa Rica, Dr. Mauricio Rosal, delegate of the Republic of Honduras, and Dr. Ernst Hoffmann, delegate of the Republic of Panama, on behalf of their Governments to the Intergovenmental Committee, Evian, July 11, 1938, 11am, p. 1/2
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY
Joint declaration made by Dr. Constantino Herdocia, delegate of the Republic of Nicaragua, Professor Luis Dobles Segreda, delegate of the Republic of Costa Rica, Dr. Mauricio Rosal, delegate of the Republic of Honduras, and Dr. Ernst Hoffmann, delegate of the Republic of Panama, on behalf of their Governments to the Intergovenmental Committee, Evian, July 11, 1938, 11am, p. 2/2
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY
Joint declaration made by Dr. Constantino Herdocia, delegate of the Republic of Nicaragua, Professor Luis Dobles Segreda, delegate of the Republic of Costa Rica, Dr. Mauricio Rosal, delegate of the Republic of Honduras, and Dr. Ernst Hoffmann, delegate of the Republic of Panama, on behalf of their Governments to the Intergovenmental Committee, Evian, July 11, 1938, 11am, p. 2/2
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY
Statement by the delegations of Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Honduras for the Technical Sub-Committee, July 11, 1938
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY
Statement by the delegations of Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Honduras for the Technical Sub-Committee, July 11, 1938
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY
Letters addressed to the Chairman of the Technical Sub-Committee by Dr. Constantino Herdocia, delegate of Nicaragua, and Dr. Mauricio Rosal, delegate of Honduras, on July 11, 1938
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY
Letters addressed to the Chairman of the Technical Sub-Committee by Dr. Constantino Herdocia, delegate of Nicaragua, and Dr. Mauricio Rosal, delegate of Honduras, on July 11, 1938
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY
