New charter school named for Holocaust hero [VIDEO]

José A. Castellanos Elementary, a new charter school with a significant Holocaust connection, opened on Wednesday, Aug. 18, for its first day of classes.  Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, LAUSD Board President Mónica García, and a number of teachers, parents, and other supporters of the school welcomed 350 students to the campus near Washington and Normandie, an area with a large El Salvadoran population.

“This is what we need: people coming together to create new options for students,” Garcia said.

Castellanos was consul general of El Salvador in Switzerland during the Holocaust, and he saved the lives of 40,000 Jewish refugees by issuing them visas to escape to El Salvador. Although Castellanos died in 1977, his granddaughter, Ana Velasquez, a resident of Ventura, and other family members were in attendance for the celebration.

Velasquez, who is not Jewish, wore a Star of David necklace out of respect for victims of the Holocaust. She described her grandfather as a very modest man, who did not even tell his family of the lives he saved until 1975. And the story he told was that anyone else in his place would have done the same.

“I think that’s the most important thing he did,” Velasquez said. “To save that many lives, and he never mentioned it for so long.”

As consul general, Castellanos became friends with a Transylvanian-born Jewish businessman named George Mantello, formerly Mandle, who shared his fears for the lives of many of his family and friends. Castellanos appointed Mantello to the post of First Secretary of the El Salvadorian consulate in Geneva and helped him to issue immigration papers to Jews throughout Nazi-occupied Europe.

Castellanos school, which has a largely Latino population, is part of the Camino Nuevo Charter Academy, a network of college preparatory public charter schools that serves over 1,900 students, pre-school through high school. Founded in August 2000 by the nonprofit community development corporation Pueblo Nuevo, the network’s objective is to educate students through a program that encourages independent thinking and attention to social justice and the world around them.

Regional Director of Policy and Advocacy for the California Charter Schools Association Allison Bajracharya said impetus for the school, located in LAUSD District II, came from a demand from parents and the community to transform public education and give neighborhood kids the academic tools and life skills for the future.

A Los Angeles synagogue, Temple Knesset Israel, helped in the naming of the charter school, according to Yair Gaitan, a board member with the shul. Gaitan said that nearly one year ago, while the school was under construction, Oscar Dominguez, president of the Salvadoran Community Corridor—a stretch of Vermont heavily populated by El Salvadorians Boulevard near both the charter school and Knesset Israel,—came to Gaitan with the idea that the school could celebrate an El Salvadorian historical figure who embodies tolerance by naming it for Castellanos.

Gaitan said he “jumped” on Dominguez’s idea and, with the help of the shul’s rabbi and members, “mobilized really fast, getting support from distinguished people from our synagogue.” They collected approximately 200 signatures from a canvassing effort—including sending letters of support to LAUSD—to push for using Castellanos name.

This community outreach culminated in LAUSD’s unanimous approval of the name, Gaitan said.

Gaitan stressed that it made sense for the synagogue to be involved, as the synagogue not only serves Latino Jews —about 30 of them, according to Gaitan’s estimates —there is also a member of the synagogue whose mother was saved by Castellanos during the Holocaust.

The school is still open for enrollment and will have a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the fall.

Staff writer Ryan Torok contributed to this report.