You probably already know about Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who saved thousands of Jews from certain death during World War II.  He was not the only one.  Other famous and not so famous individuals involved were Raoul Wallenberg, Algoth Niska, Chiune Sugihara, Traian Popovici or Gilberto Bosques.

A veteran of the Mexican Revolution, before the beginning of the war he worked as General Consul at the Mexican Embassy in Paris.  When Hitler conquered Paris, the Embassy was moved to Marseille, and Bosques was left in charge.  He gave thousands of visas to Jews, resistance fighters and Spanish Civil War refugees to escape to Mexico, and even went as far as organising lodging for thousands of them in two castles near the city of Marseille.

Eventually, however, he was imprisoned by Nazi Germany for a year with the rest of the Latin American diplomatic corps at Bad Godesberg, not only for helping "enemies of the regime" but also because by that time Mexico was also at war with the Axis.  He was freed in an exchange of prisoners between Mexico and Germany before the end of the war.

Why aren't these kind of heroes remembered at school, instead of more dubious individuals such as Pancho Villa?

More information here.

One of the things that I discussed with the guys mentioned in this post was the reasons behind such a strong relationship between Mexico and Germany.  The largest Deutsche Schule outside of Germany operates in Mexico City, and there are many Germans in Mexico and Mexicans in Germany, due to the strong FDI by companies like Volkswagen and student exchange ties. according to an article I read in the Reforma newspaper a couple of years back, there were more Mexicans registered in the embassy in Germany than in Spain!).  Why is it so?

• Alexander von Humboldt, German scholar, visited Mexico at the beginning of the 19th century during his research trip through Latin America.  That gave the country some visibility in the illustrated circles of the time.
• The Hanseatic and Prussian states were some of the first European countries that recognised Mexican independence.
• During the 19th century, Germany was the only great power that didn't try to conquer Mexico after its independence.  Spain tried, France did for a while, the UK harassed the country a couple of times (and helped it a couple too), and of course we know about the results of the Mexican-American war.
• Furthermore, during the Great War, Germany even tried to convince Mexico to enter on their side, with the ruse of offering support in the reconquest of lost territories.  However, Mexico was in the middle of the Mexican Revolution, and to make matters worse, when the proposal, known as the Zimmermann note, reached U.S. hands, they declared war on Germany.

For more information, you might want to check this note here.