A Closed Door: The Infamous Decree of 1938

On September 23, 1938, 86 years ago, one of the most infamous episodes in Colombian history took place: The Decree 1723 of 1938. This decree, issued by the foreign minister of Eduardo Santos’ government, Luis López de Mesa, halted Jewish migration to Colombia and closed the door to those fleeing Nazi extermination.

Three months earlier, in July 1938, the Evian Conference had taken place, another shameful moment where the world’s great powers debated what to do with the thousands of Jewish migrants escaping Nazi Europe. Colombia, represented by Jesús María Yepes Herrera, declined to accept migrants. During the conference, Yepes made statements such as, “We reserve the right to reject racial minorities, who are contrary to our historical tradition and racial homogeneity” and, “The minority system must remain exclusive to the Old World.”

Colombia was not an exception. Of the 32 countries that participated, only the brave Dominican Republic agreed to take in 10,000 Jews. On August 7, 1938, Eduardo Santos assumed the presidency during the Liberal hegemony and appointed Luis López de Mesa as his foreign minister. López de Mesa is known as a founder of sociology in Colombia and for serving as Minister of Education in the previous government. However, what he should be most remembered for is his ardent antisemitism, rooted in racial pseudoscience that some politicians still echo today.

According to the research conducted by historian Lina Leal, one of the most important works on antisemitism in Colombia, Colombia frente al antisemitismo y la inmigración de judíos polacos y alemanes 1933-1948 (Colombia in the face of Antisemitism: Polish and German Jewish Immigration 1933-1948), López de Mesa believed Jews had a “parasitic orientation in life.” He claimed that Jews focused on “amassing wealth through exchange and usury, through barter and trickery.” In the early months of Santos’ government, on September 23, 1938, Decree 1723 was issued, stating that “the Republic’s consular officials shall not, without specific and concrete authorization from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, visa the passports of individuals who have lost their nationality of origin, or who are stateless, or whose civil and political rights have been restricted in any way that hinders their return to their country of origin.” The goal was clear: to limit and halt Jewish migration to Colombia.

By 1933, the Nazi government had already revoked the citizenship of German Jews, and their civil and political rights were severely violated. If it wasn’t already clear who the decree targeted, in the following months, as documented by Semana magazine in its atlas on Nazism, López de Mesa sent a circular to consuls requesting that they “oppose all possible human obstacles to granting visas to Jewish applicants.”

Years later, on August 8, 1946, the worst episode of violence against the Jewish community in Colombia would occur. In Bogotá, following a street dispute, a furious mob attacked the local Jewish community. Forty-four Jewish businesses were vandalized, as well as the local synagogue, with chants of “Death to Polish Jews.”

It is hard to comprehend how, in the midst of the Liberal Republic, during the early days of Eduardo Santos’ presidency, one of the most shameful decrees in the country’s history was signed. It closed the door to over 10,000 people trying to escape the worst extermination in history. One of them was Hans Kelsen. Eduardo Santos and Luis López De Mesa were signatories of the decree, complicit in the indifference that, in many cases, condemned innocent people to the gas chambers—people who had hoped to make Colombia their home.

Leal concludes her research with this reflection: “Despite the fleeting nature of antisemitic discourse and actions, Colombia lost the opportunity to enrich its cultural diversity by receiving Jewish immigrants of Polish and German origin. Moreover, many Jewish applicants (over 15,000, according to figures from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) had to remain in Europe, and some of them perished at the hands of Adolf Hitler’s antisemitic regime.” (Leal, Lina, 2011).

Sadly, today’s reflection must be different: Colombia not only lost the opportunity to enrich its cultural diversity and save lives, but it also lost the chance to learn, with respect, about its complacent role in Nazi history. Figures like cartoonist Matador today use the same graphic tropes as the Nazis. Matador depicts Benjamin Netanyahu as a rabbi with a beard, horns, and a tail, or the figure of the death wearing a kippah and a Star of David.

On the other hand, President Petro, instead of reflecting on his inappropriate and incorrect comparisons between the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Auschwitz or the Shoah, responds arrogantly to the comments of Ambassador Lipstadt, a leading figure in Holocaust studies, denialism, and the fight against antisemitism. The constant trivialization of concepts like Nazism, the Holocaust, or figures like Hitler makes the president and a significant portion of Colombia forget who the primary targets and victims of the Nazis were: Jews, including our grandparents.

These openly antisemitic narratives—another concept the president has trivialized, constantly shifting its definition—don’t just result in insults. They lead to swastikas appearing on streets, harassment of Jewish institutions, and threats on social media. Those who survived the Nazi extermination, the racism of López de Mesa and Santos, and managed to make Colombia their home, now witness President Petro insulting their memory and history for likes on Twitter.

Once again, as if shouting into the void, we must say: Do not massacre our history in an attempt to sound intelligent. Do not insult our memory to feed your moral superiority. You are not speaking of abstract concepts you shamelessly trivialize. You are talking about the events that built our community, with tears, sweat, and pain.

Our collective memory is a freshly opened wound, not a ruler to measure your ego.