After studying law, his first diplomatic posting was to Cairo. He was sent to Budapest in 1942 where he was helped by Giorgio Perlasca, an Italian veteran of the Spanish Civil War, with saving the lives of 5,200 Jews from the Holocaust by issuing them fake Spanish papers; as Spain was neutral in the war, this made the difference between life and death for those Jews. In 1944, as the Red Army approached Budapest, he was ordered to leave for Switzerland. After that time Perlasca continued his labor with fake documents.