in the Chiapaneco highlands and given German names such as Hamburgo, Bremen, Lübeck, Argovia, Bismarck, Prussia, Germania and Hanover. About 6,000 Russian Mennonites, who came originally from Northern Germany and the Netherlands, migrated from Canada to northern Mexico in the 1920s. Today, there are about 115,000 practicing descendants of Mennonites in Mexico, who have preserved the Plautdietsch dialect and maintained their self sustaining agricultural and religious practices on their properties. By their community's rules, German Mexican Mennonites are allowed to speak Spanish primarily for the purposes of business, culture, and, on occasion, finding spouses. Several mennonite colonies have historically been victim to religious fervor, notably during the Christian Civil War. Cult like criticisms persist into the modern day with complaints of “luring and brainwashing the youth,” though these claims remain unsubstantiated with most colonies being mildly isolated and viewed favorably by the Mexican government. The most prosperous Mennonite colonies in Mexico lie in the states of Chihuahua (Cuauhtémoc), Durango (Patos (Nuevo Ideal), Nuevo Hamburgo), Zacatecas (La Honda), Sinaloa, Aguascalientes and Campeche. Before and after declaring war on the Axis Powers in 1942, port authority began accepting Jewish German refugees as early as 1937 albeit unofficially due to the controversial nature of the Jewish question as well as growing anti-semitism in Caribbean policies. The most notable example being Mexico’s reception of German-Jews aboard the St. Louis after the would be immigrants had been refused by Cuban officials in 1939. Government stances on neutrality allotted for inaccurate and skewed registration of war-time arrivals with official documents stating only 18,000 while community and Parish reports cite upwards of 100,000. Contrary to official government reports, the Jewish and Polish-Catholic communities in Mexico cited tens of thousands of new Jewish-German and Polish arrivals between 1937 to 1944. Mexico admitted only 1,850 Jewish refugees between 1933 and 1945, but issued at least 16,000 immigration visas to Spanish loyalist refugees between 1938 and 1945, and over 1,400 visas to Catholic Polish refugees between 1939 and 1941. It is estimated many of these visas were actually used by Jewish German fleeing through the Spain in addition to the stowaways smuggled in by seafaring “coyotes." Mexican diplomat Gilberto Bosques Saldivar also played an important role in rescuing German-Jews fleeing through the underground French railroad network. As a consul in Marseilles, a port city in what became Vichy France, Bosques directed consular officials to issue a visa to any refugee