The Myth of Moritz Hochschild
Moritz Hochschild has been called the ‘Bolivian Oscar Schindler’ and has been featured in a recent novel written by a lady named Veronica Ormachea that has been reviewed by the ‘Times of Israel’. As part of their article on Ormachea’s book the ‘Times of Israel’ talks about the history behind Hochschild’s ‘rescue of the jews from the Holocaust’ in much the same way as Chiune Sugihara of Japan (1) and Ho Feng-Shan of China’s alleged ‘rescue’ of jews has been. (2)
To wit:
‘A Jewish immigrant to Bolivia who made a fortune mining tin saved 10 times as many lives during the Holocaust than the star of Oscar-winning Hollywood blockbuster “Schindler’s List,” a journalist and writer told AFP.
[…]
But according to Veronica Ormachea, Moritz (Mauricio) Hochschild saved 10,000 Jews from Adolf Hitler’s gas chambers during World War II.
“It was a historic fact that he managed to save 10,000 Jews,” although not his sister, who was killed at Auschwitz.
Born in Germany in 1881, Hochschild became one of Bolivia’s three “tin barons” in the early part of the 20th century, alongside Simon Patino and Carlos Aramayo, who wielded great influence in the South American country until the 1952 revolution in which mining was nationalized.
[…]
While the book’s main protagonist is a work of fiction, Ormachea insists that the stories told are real. She compiled them after years of research and interviews with descendants of the immigrants.
“They used ports in Italy and Lisbon to get out of Europe. They arrived at the port of Arica (in northern Chile) before taking the train to Bolivia,” she said.
Ormachea points to a 1940 letter from Hochschild to James Rosenberg, a Jew living in New York, asking for financial help, as evidence to support her claims.
In the letter, Hochschild says he’s managed to transport to Bolivia “between 9,000 and 10,000” Jews and that his plan, which had the support of Bolivia’s military leader of the time, German Busch, was to bring 30,000 people to the country.
With help from two of Hochschild’s companies, the Jews arriving in Bolivia were given farm work in the coca-growing region of Yungas, to the east of La Paz.
They were also given loans and Bolivia’s 1940 census said there were 12,300 Jews living in the country.
Ormachea says Hochschild used his fortune to help Jews by providing passports, transport, food and the start of a new life in Bolivia.
[…]
Ormachea says Hochschild managed to convince his friend Busch, himself the descendent of German immigrants, of the advantages of bringing the Jewish population from Europe. Bolivia was one of the few countries that opened its arms to Jewish migrants both before and during World War II.
Hochschild has not gone down in Bolivian history as a good Samaritan, though. Rather, he’s remembered as one of the foreigners who struck it rich exploiting natural resources in an impoverished country in South America, and who had incompetent, corrupt rulers under their thumbs.’ (1)
Now the vital context here is provided by the Jewish Virtual Library’s entry on Hochschild:
‘The 1930s saw the peak of the Moritz Hochschild Group's economical and political influence. In 1938, using his influence with German Busch, Bolivia's military president from 1937 to 1939, Hochschild pushed Bolivia to open its doors to Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany. An estimated 9,000 were admitted to Bolivia because of Hochschild. He also funded the transport of the refugees and their housing once they arrived in the South American country. Newspapers have called him "Bolivia's Schindler."
In both 1939 and 1944, Hochschild was arrested by the Bolivian government and sentenced to death. Just two weeks after his release following his 1944 arrest, he was captured and held by kidnappers for two weeks. After he was freed he left Bolivia, never to return.’ (2)
Now since Hochschild was only actively bringing jews to Bolivia between 1937 and 1938 and was in imprisoned twice between 1939 and 1944. It therefore means that Hochschild cannot plausibly be claimed to have ‘rescued jews from the Holocaust’, because the ‘Holocaust’s’ beginning is dated to early 1942, which is three to four years after Hochschild twisted the arm of Bolivian President German Busch into letting jews pour into – and take over – Bolivia.
It therefore necessitates that Hochschild cannot be seen as the ‘Bolivian Schindler’ because Oscar Schindler actually saved jews from the so-called ‘death camps’ during the height of the so-called ‘Holocaust’. Hochschild by comparison ‘saved’ jews four years before the so-called ‘Holocaust’ was even discussed so unless we attribute telepathy and divination/prognostication to Hochschild he cannot have ‘known’ about the so-called ‘Holocaust’ and thus cannot be seen as a man who ‘rescued the jews’ from it.
References
(1) https://karlradl1 4.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-chiune-sugihara
(2) https://karlrad l14.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-ho-feng-shan
(3) https://www.timesofisrael.com/bolivias-schindler-saved-10-times-as-many-jews-from-holocaust-writer-says/ also see https://www.france24.com/en/20181027-bolivias-schindler-saved-10-times-many-jews-holocaust
(4) https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/moritz-hochschild