Aristides de Sousa Mendes
Encyclopedia
Aristides de Sousa Mendes do Amaral e Abranches, GCC
, OL
(July 19, 1885 – April 3, 1954; ɐɾiʃˈtidɨʒ dɨ ˈsowzɐ ˈmẽdɨʃ) was a Portuguese
diplomat
. He ignored and defied the orders of his own government for the safety of war refugees fleeing from invading German military forces in the early years of World War II
. Between June 16 and June 23, 1940, he frantically issued Portuguese visa
s free of charge, to over 30,000 refugee
s seeking to escape the Nazi terror, 12,000 of whom were Jews
.
, in Carregal do Sal, in the district of Viseu
, Centro Region of Portugal
, on July 19, 1885. His ancestry included a notable aristocratic line: his mother, Maria Angelina Ribeiro de Abranches de Abreu Castelo-Branco, was a maternal granddaughter of the 2nd Viscount
of Midões. His father, José de Sousa Mendes, had been a Judge
on the Supreme Court
; and his twin brother, César, would become Foreign Minister in 1932–33, during António de Oliveira Salazar
's regime.
Sousa Mendes and his twin studied law at the University of Coimbra, and each obtained his law degree in 1908. In that same year, Sousa Mendes married his childhood sweetheart, Maria Angelina Ribeiro de Abranches (born August 20, 1888); they eventually had fourteen children, born in the various countries in which he served.
Shortly after his marriage, Sousa Mendes began the diplomatic career that would take him and his family around the world. Early in his career, he served in Zanzibar
, Kenya
, Brazil
, and the United States
before being assigned to Antwerp, Belgium, in 1931. In Belgium, he met Nobel Prize winners Maurice Maeterlinck
and Albert Einstein
. After almost ten years of dedicated service in Belgium
, Sousa Mendes was assigned to the consulate of Bordeaux
, France
.
and the invasion of France by the Nazi
army of Adolf Hitler
. Salazar managed to maintain Portugal's neutrality in the war. On November 11, 1939, he issued orders that consuls were not to issue Portuguese visas to "foreigners of indefinite or contested nationality; the stateless; or Jews expelled from their countries of origin". This order was followed only six months later by one stating that "under no circumstances" were visas to be issued without prior case-by-case approval from Lisbon
. Similar policies against Jewish immigration were adopted much earlier by the United States and the United Kingdom.
The Jewish Virtual Library biography of Sousa Mendes records the consul's response as follows:
Thus it was in a deliberate act of disobedience that Sousa Mendes issued an estimated 30,000 visas to Jews and other persecuted minorities: political dissidents, army officers from occupied countries, and priests and nuns. These visas were not all to individuals, but sometimes to families; in at least one case, the visa covered a family of nine people. Sousa Mendes was inspired to this act in part through his friendship with Rabbi
Chaim (Haim) Kruger, who had fled to France from Antwerp.
The earliest of these visas were issued in the months between the 1939 and mid-1940 decrees, a period during which he attempted to protect his family by sending all but two sons home to Portugal and sending constant telegrams to Lisbon with coded requests for approval of the visas, in order to preserve his post while obeying his conscience. The majority of the visas, however, were issued after a harrowing three-day crisis of conscience in mid-June, 1940, shortly after Franco changed the status of Spain from "neutral" to "non-belligerent", which suggested time was running out for Portugal to follow its neighbor. The consul offered a visa to his friend the rabbi, who responded, "I can't accept a visa for us and leave my people behind." The distraught consul took to his bed in confusion from June 14 to the 16th. From his crisis, Sousa Mendes emerged on June 17, 1940, determined to obey what he called a "divine power" and grant visas to everyone in need, at whatever cost to himself.
that processed visas all through that day and well into the night. They made whatever changes were necessary to the usual procedure: the consul signing with just his surname, not registering the visas or collecting fees, and stamping visas on pieces of paper. The sense of urgency was heightened even more when Marshal Philippe Pétain
announced that day that France would sign a peace agreement with Germany
. The assembly line kept working all through the following day. A delegate of the House of Habsburg, after having to wait his turn in the seemingly endless line, left with 19 visas for the imperial family of the Archduke
, who later returned in person to obtain an additional stack of visas for Austria
n refugees.
On into June 19, the assembly line marched on through stacks and stacks of visas, even as the city was bombed by German planes. At this point, Sousa Mendes rushed to the consulate at Bayonne
, near the Spanish border where his visas were being honored for the crowds rushing out of the country. Finding that consulate overwhelmed, he took over responsibility from his subordinate there, Consul Machado, and set up a second assembly line to process thousands more exit documents. (Machado reported this behavior to Portugal's ambassador to Spain, Pedro Teotónio Pereira
, whose maternal grandfather was German
, who favored Germany and worried that accepting those unacceptable to Hitler would ruin Portugal's relationship with Franco; Teotónio Pereira promptly set out for the French border.)
Sousa Mendes continued on to Hendaye
to assist there, thus narrowly missing two cablegrams from Lisbon sent June 22 to Bordeaux and Bayonne ordering him to stop even as France's armistice with Germany became official. In an article for a religious magazine in 1996, his son John Paul de Abranches told the story:
Sousa Mendes traveled to the border at Irun
on June 23, where he personally raised the gate to allow disputed passages into Spain to occur. It was at this point that Ambassador Teotónio Pereira arrived at Irun, declared Sousa Mendes mentally incompetent and invalidated all further visas. An Associated Press
story the next day reported that some 10,000 persons attempting to cross over into Spain were excluded because authorities no longer granted recognition to their visas.
As Sousa Mendes continued the flow of visas, Salazar sent a telegram on June 24 recalling him to Portugal, an order he received upon returning to Bordeaux on June 26 but followed only slowly, not arriving in Portugal until July 8. Along the way he issued Portuguese passports to refugees now trapped in occupied France, saving them by preventing their deportation to concentration camps.
that left him at least partially paralyzed. In his later years, the formerly much-honored diplomat was abandoned by most of his colleagues and friends and often blamed by some of his close family members. Aided by a local Jewish refugee agency — which had begun to feed the family and pay their rent upon discovering the situation — the children moved to other countries one by one in search of opportunities they were now denied in Portugal, though all accounts by them indicate they never blamed their father or regretted his decision. His wife, Angelina, died in 1948. Stripped of his pension, he died in poverty on April 3, 1954, still in disgrace with his government.
This ill-treatment by his government for acts considered heroic in other countries was not unique to Sousa Mendes. Others similarly dishonored include Chiune Sugihara
, the Japan
ese consul in Kaunas
, Lithuania
; Carl Lutz
, the Swiss
Vice-Consul in Budapest
, Hungary
; and Paul Grüninger
, chief of police in the Swiss canton of Sankt-Gallen (Saint-Gall)
. Ironically, the actions that caused Salazar to dismiss his diplomatic representative brought considerable praise to him and to Portugal, seen internationally as a haven of hospitality for refugee Jews; the magazine Life called Salazar "the greatest Portuguese since Henry the Navigator" (July 29, 1940).
. In 1966 Sousa Mendes was honored at Israel
's Yad Vashem
memorial to the Holocaust as one of the "Righteous Among The Nations
," one of the first steps in the long journey. In 1986, inspired by the election of a civilian president in Portugal, his son John Paul Abranches began to circulate a petition to the Portuguese president within his adopted country, the United States
. He and his wife Joan worked with Robert Jacobvitz, an executive at the Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay (Oakland, CA), to start and run the "International Committee to Commemorate Dr. Aristides de Sousa Mendes." They were able to gain the support of various political actors, including: Colette Avital
, the Israeli Ambassador to Portugal who liaised with the Portuguese government; and two members of the California delegation of the United States House of Representatives
, Portuguese-American Rep. Tony Coelho
and Rep. Henry Waxman
, who had a family member saved by Sousa Mendes' signature, who introduced a resolution in Congress to recognize his humanitarian action (passed in 1987).
Also in 1987, the Portuguese Republic began to rehabilitate Sousa Mendes' memory and granted a posthumous Order of Liberty
medal, one of that country's highest honors, although the consul's diplomatic honors still were not restored. On March 18, 1988 the Portuguese parliament officially dismissed all charges, restoring him to the diplomatic corps by unanimous vote and honoring him with a standing ovation
. He was promoted to the rank of Ambassador He also was issued the Cross of Merit
for his actions in Bordeaux. In December of that year, the U.S. Ambassador to Portugal, Edward Rowell presented copies of the congressional resolution from the previous year to Pedro Nuno de Sousa Mendes, one of the sons who had helped in the assembly line at Bordeaux, and to President Mário Soares
at the Palácio de Belém. In 1994 former President Soares dedicated a bust of Sousa Mendes in Bordeaux, along with a commemorative plaque at 14 quai Louis-XVIII, the address at which the consulate at Bordeaux had been housed.
In 1995, a commemorative stamp was issued in Portugal.http://www.caleida.pt/filatelia/aleph/ficha?emi_00_01+7747
In 2004, the 50th anniversary of Sousa Mendes' death, the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
and the Angelo Roncalli Committee organized more than 80 commemorations around the world. Religious, cultural and educational activities took place in 30 countries in the five continents.
A great homage was done in memory of Aristides Sousa Mendes at UNESCO
Headquarters in Paris
on 11 May and 10 November 2005, in a benefit performance on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of UNESCO and the fortieth anniversary of Portugal's admittance. The baritone Jorge Chaminé
gave a recital at the Great Hall. The French writer Jean Lacouture
wrote that "in more than 50 years as a listener all over the world, I never heard such an incredible performance. What a marvellous homage to this great man!"
The mansion that Sousa Mendes had to abandon and sell in the poverty of his final years was left for decades to rot and decay, and at one time was to be razed and replaced by a hotel. However, with reparations
funds given by the Portuguese government to Sousa Mendes' heirs in 2000, the family decided to create the Aristides de Sousa Mendes Foundation (Fundação Aristides de Sousa Mendes, in Portuguese). With assistance from government officials, the foundation purchased the family home in order to develop a museum in his honor. The house was classified as a Portuguese National Monument on February 3, 2005. The two events at UNESCO raised a 6,000 euro
donation for the foundation; even so, the foundation's president said in 2006 that the organization was finding it difficult to raise sufficient additional funds for the renovation.
On 14 January 2007, he was voted into the top ten of the poll show Os Grandes Portugueses
(The Greatest Portuguese), on 25 March 2007, the day of the results revelation, he was voted into third place, behind deceased communist
leader Álvaro Cunhal
(runner-up) and deceased dictator António de Oliveira Salazar
(winner).
In February 2008, Portuguese Parliamentary Speaker Jaime Gama
led a session which launched a virtual Museum, on the World-Wide Web; it offers access to photographs and other documents chronicling Mendes' life. The site includes content in Portuguese, but translations into other languages are planned.
I would rather stand with God against man, than with man against God.
If thousands of Jews suffer because of a non-Jewish demon [Hitler], then surely a Christian can suffer with so many Jews.
I could not have acted otherwise, and I therefore accept all that has befallen me with love.
Order of Christ (Portugal)
The Military Order of Christ previously the Royal Order of the Knights of Our Lord Jesus Christ was the heritage of the Knights Templar in Portugal, after the suppression of the Templars in 1312...
, OL
Order of Liberty
The Order of Liberty, or Freedom, is a Portuguese honorific civil order that distinguishes relevant services to the cause of democracy and freedom, in the defense of the values of civilization and human dignification...
(July 19, 1885 – April 3, 1954; ɐɾiʃˈtidɨʒ dɨ ˈsowzɐ ˈmẽdɨʃ) was a Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
diplomat
Diplomacy
Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...
. He ignored and defied the orders of his own government for the safety of war refugees fleeing from invading German military forces in the early years of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Between June 16 and June 23, 1940, he frantically issued Portuguese visa
Visa (document)
A visa is a document showing that a person is authorized to enter the territory for which it was issued, subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry. The authorization may be a document, but more commonly it is a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport...
s free of charge, to over 30,000 refugee
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
s seeking to escape the Nazi terror, 12,000 of whom were Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
.
Early life
Aristides de Sousa Mendes was born in Cabanas de ViriatoCabanas de Viriato
Cabanas de Viriato is a town in the Carregal do Sal Municipality, Dão-Lafões Subregion of the Viseu District, in the Centro Region of Portugal.The size of the area is 21,94 km² with a population of 1 698...
, in Carregal do Sal, in the district of Viseu
Viseu (district)
The District of Viseu is located in the Central Inland of Portugal, the District Capital is the city of Viseu.-Municipalities:The district is composed by 24 municipalities:-Summary of votes and seats won 1976-2011:...
, Centro Region of Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, on July 19, 1885. His ancestry included a notable aristocratic line: his mother, Maria Angelina Ribeiro de Abranches de Abreu Castelo-Branco, was a maternal granddaughter of the 2nd Viscount
Viscount
A viscount or viscountess is a member of the European nobility whose comital title ranks usually, as in the British peerage, above a baron, below an earl or a count .-Etymology:...
of Midões. His father, José de Sousa Mendes, had been a Judge
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
on the Supreme Court
Portuguese Supreme Court of Justice
Portuguese Supreme Court of Justice is the highest court of law in Portugal without prejudice to the jurisdiction of the Portuguese Constitutional Court.The President of the Supreme Court of Justice is elected by and among the members of the court....
; and his twin brother, César, would become Foreign Minister in 1932–33, during António de Oliveira Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar, GColIH, GCTE, GCSE served as the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He also served as acting President of the Republic briefly in 1951. He founded and led the Estado Novo , the authoritarian, right-wing government that presided over and controlled Portugal...
's regime.
Sousa Mendes and his twin studied law at the University of Coimbra, and each obtained his law degree in 1908. In that same year, Sousa Mendes married his childhood sweetheart, Maria Angelina Ribeiro de Abranches (born August 20, 1888); they eventually had fourteen children, born in the various countries in which he served.
Shortly after his marriage, Sousa Mendes began the diplomatic career that would take him and his family around the world. Early in his career, he served in Zanzibar
Zanzibar
Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...
, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
before being assigned to Antwerp, Belgium, in 1931. In Belgium, he met Nobel Prize winners Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also called Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life...
and Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
. After almost ten years of dedicated service in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, Sousa Mendes was assigned to the consulate of Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
His acts as diplomat
The consul was still in Bordeaux at the outbreak of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the invasion of France by the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
army of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. Salazar managed to maintain Portugal's neutrality in the war. On November 11, 1939, he issued orders that consuls were not to issue Portuguese visas to "foreigners of indefinite or contested nationality; the stateless; or Jews expelled from their countries of origin". This order was followed only six months later by one stating that "under no circumstances" were visas to be issued without prior case-by-case approval from Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
. Similar policies against Jewish immigration were adopted much earlier by the United States and the United Kingdom.
The Jewish Virtual Library biography of Sousa Mendes records the consul's response as follows:
- "Within days of the new orders, Sousa Mendes was taken to task for having granted a visa to a Viennese refugee, Professor Arnold Wizrntzer. Called to task by his superiors, Sousa Mendes answered: "He informed me that, were he unable to leave France that very day, he would be interned in a concentration [read, detention] camp, leaving his wife and minor son stranded. I considered it a duty of elementary humanity to prevent such an extremity."
Thus it was in a deliberate act of disobedience that Sousa Mendes issued an estimated 30,000 visas to Jews and other persecuted minorities: political dissidents, army officers from occupied countries, and priests and nuns. These visas were not all to individuals, but sometimes to families; in at least one case, the visa covered a family of nine people. Sousa Mendes was inspired to this act in part through his friendship with Rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
Chaim (Haim) Kruger, who had fled to France from Antwerp.
The earliest of these visas were issued in the months between the 1939 and mid-1940 decrees, a period during which he attempted to protect his family by sending all but two sons home to Portugal and sending constant telegrams to Lisbon with coded requests for approval of the visas, in order to preserve his post while obeying his conscience. The majority of the visas, however, were issued after a harrowing three-day crisis of conscience in mid-June, 1940, shortly after Franco changed the status of Spain from "neutral" to "non-belligerent", which suggested time was running out for Portugal to follow its neighbor. The consul offered a visa to his friend the rabbi, who responded, "I can't accept a visa for us and leave my people behind." The distraught consul took to his bed in confusion from June 14 to the 16th. From his crisis, Sousa Mendes emerged on June 17, 1940, determined to obey what he called a "divine power" and grant visas to everyone in need, at whatever cost to himself.
June 17-July 8: the French-Portuguese exodus
Working feverishly with Rabbi Kruger, the two remaining Sousa Mendes sons and their mother, and a few refugees, the consul formed an assembly lineAssembly line
An assembly line is a manufacturing process in which parts are added to a product in a sequential manner using optimally planned logistics to create a finished product much faster than with handcrafting-type methods...
that processed visas all through that day and well into the night. They made whatever changes were necessary to the usual procedure: the consul signing with just his surname, not registering the visas or collecting fees, and stamping visas on pieces of paper. The sense of urgency was heightened even more when Marshal Philippe Pétain
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
announced that day that France would sign a peace agreement with Germany
Armistice with France (Second Compiègne)
The Second Armistice at Compiègne was signed at 18:50 on 22 June 1940 near Compiègne, in the department of Oise, between Nazi Germany and France...
. The assembly line kept working all through the following day. A delegate of the House of Habsburg, after having to wait his turn in the seemingly endless line, left with 19 visas for the imperial family of the Archduke
Otto von Habsburg
Otto von Habsburg , also known by his royal name as Archduke Otto of Austria, was the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary from 1916 until the dissolution of the empire in 1918, a realm which comprised modern-day Austria, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia,...
, who later returned in person to obtain an additional stack of visas for Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n refugees.
On into June 19, the assembly line marched on through stacks and stacks of visas, even as the city was bombed by German planes. At this point, Sousa Mendes rushed to the consulate at Bayonne
Bayonne
Bayonne is a city and commune in south-western France at the confluence of the Nive and Adour rivers, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, of which it is a sub-prefecture...
, near the Spanish border where his visas were being honored for the crowds rushing out of the country. Finding that consulate overwhelmed, he took over responsibility from his subordinate there, Consul Machado, and set up a second assembly line to process thousands more exit documents. (Machado reported this behavior to Portugal's ambassador to Spain, Pedro Teotónio Pereira
Pedro Teotónio Pereira
Pedro Teotónio Pereira was a Portuguese Politician and Diplomat.-Background:He was a son of João Teotónio Pereira, Jr...
, whose maternal grandfather was German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
, who favored Germany and worried that accepting those unacceptable to Hitler would ruin Portugal's relationship with Franco; Teotónio Pereira promptly set out for the French border.)
Sousa Mendes continued on to Hendaye
Hendaye
Hendaye is the most south-westerly town and commune in France, lying in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department and located in the traditional province Lapurdi of the French Basque Country...
to assist there, thus narrowly missing two cablegrams from Lisbon sent June 22 to Bordeaux and Bayonne ordering him to stop even as France's armistice with Germany became official. In an article for a religious magazine in 1996, his son John Paul de Abranches told the story:
- "As his diplomatic car reached the French border town of Hendaye, my father encountered a large group of stranded refugees for whom he had previously issued visas. Those people had been turned away because the Portuguese government had phoned the guards, commanding, 'Do not honor Mendes's signature on visas.'"
- "Ordering his driver to slow down, Father waved the group to follow him to a border checkpoint that had no telephones. In the official black limousine with its diplomatic license tags, Father led those refugees across the border toward freedom."
Sousa Mendes traveled to the border at Irun
Irun
Irun is a town of the Bidasoa-Txingudi region in the province of Gipuzkoa in the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain...
on June 23, where he personally raised the gate to allow disputed passages into Spain to occur. It was at this point that Ambassador Teotónio Pereira arrived at Irun, declared Sousa Mendes mentally incompetent and invalidated all further visas. An Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
story the next day reported that some 10,000 persons attempting to cross over into Spain were excluded because authorities no longer granted recognition to their visas.
As Sousa Mendes continued the flow of visas, Salazar sent a telegram on June 24 recalling him to Portugal, an order he received upon returning to Bordeaux on June 26 but followed only slowly, not arriving in Portugal until July 8. Along the way he issued Portuguese passports to refugees now trapped in occupied France, saving them by preventing their deportation to concentration camps.
Dishonor and disgrace
He saved an enormous number of lives, but lost his career for this. In 1941, Salazar lost political trust in Sousa Mendes and forced the diplomat to quit his career, subsequently ordering as well that no one in Portugal show him any charity. He found he also could not resume his law career, as he was prevented from registration, and he was made to surrender his foreign-issue driver's license. Just before the war's end in 1945, he suffered a strokeStroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
that left him at least partially paralyzed. In his later years, the formerly much-honored diplomat was abandoned by most of his colleagues and friends and often blamed by some of his close family members. Aided by a local Jewish refugee agency — which had begun to feed the family and pay their rent upon discovering the situation — the children moved to other countries one by one in search of opportunities they were now denied in Portugal, though all accounts by them indicate they never blamed their father or regretted his decision. His wife, Angelina, died in 1948. Stripped of his pension, he died in poverty on April 3, 1954, still in disgrace with his government.
This ill-treatment by his government for acts considered heroic in other countries was not unique to Sousa Mendes. Others similarly dishonored include Chiune Sugihara
Chiune Sugihara
was a Japanese diplomat who served as Vice-Consul for the Japanese Empire in Lithuania. During World War II, he helped several thousand Jews leave the country by issuing transit visas to Jewish refugees so that they could travel to Japan. Most of the Jews who escaped were refugees from...
, the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese consul in Kaunas
Kaunas
Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
; Carl Lutz
Carl Lutz
Carl Lutz was the Swiss Vice-Consul in Budapest, Hungary from 1942 until the end of World War II. He helped save tens of thousands of Jews from deportation to Nazi Extermination camps during the Holocaust. He is credited with saving over 62,000 Jews...
, the Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
Vice-Consul in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
; and Paul Grüninger
Paul Grüninger
Paul Grüninger was the commander of police in the Canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland and a football player....
, chief of police in the Swiss canton of Sankt-Gallen (Saint-Gall)
Canton of St. Gallen
The Canton of St. Gallen is a canton of Switzerland. St. Gallen is located in the north east of Switzerland. It covers an area of 2,026 km², and has a population of . , the population included 97,461 foreigners, or about 20.9% of the total population. The capital is St. Gallen. Spelling...
. Ironically, the actions that caused Salazar to dismiss his diplomatic representative brought considerable praise to him and to Portugal, seen internationally as a haven of hospitality for refugee Jews; the magazine Life called Salazar "the greatest Portuguese since Henry the Navigator" (July 29, 1940).
Posthumous honors
Family members seeking to clear his name sought to have his story published in magazines and began to contact Jewish visa recipients living in New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. In 1966 Sousa Mendes was honored at Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
's Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
memorial to the Holocaust as one of the "Righteous Among The Nations
Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....
," one of the first steps in the long journey. In 1986, inspired by the election of a civilian president in Portugal, his son John Paul Abranches began to circulate a petition to the Portuguese president within his adopted country, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. He and his wife Joan worked with Robert Jacobvitz, an executive at the Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay (Oakland, CA), to start and run the "International Committee to Commemorate Dr. Aristides de Sousa Mendes." They were able to gain the support of various political actors, including: Colette Avital
Colette Avital
Colette Avital is an Israeli diplomat and politician. She served as a member of the Knesset for the Labor Party and One Israel between 1999 and 2009.-Biography:...
, the Israeli Ambassador to Portugal who liaised with the Portuguese government; and two members of the California delegation of the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
, Portuguese-American Rep. Tony Coelho
Tony Coelho
Anthony "Tony" Coelho is a former United States congressman from California, and primary sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act...
and Rep. Henry Waxman
Henry Waxman
Henry Arnold Waxman is the U.S. Representative for , serving in Congress since 1975. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He is considered to be one of the most influential liberal members of Congress...
, who had a family member saved by Sousa Mendes' signature, who introduced a resolution in Congress to recognize his humanitarian action (passed in 1987).
Also in 1987, the Portuguese Republic began to rehabilitate Sousa Mendes' memory and granted a posthumous Order of Liberty
Order of Liberty
The Order of Liberty, or Freedom, is a Portuguese honorific civil order that distinguishes relevant services to the cause of democracy and freedom, in the defense of the values of civilization and human dignification...
medal, one of that country's highest honors, although the consul's diplomatic honors still were not restored. On March 18, 1988 the Portuguese parliament officially dismissed all charges, restoring him to the diplomatic corps by unanimous vote and honoring him with a standing ovation
Standing ovation
A standing ovation is a form of applause where members of a seated audience stand up while applauding after extraordinary performances of particularly high acclaim...
. He was promoted to the rank of Ambassador He also was issued the Cross of Merit
Cross of Merit
There are hundreds of decorations that bear the name "Cross of Merit". As a rule a cross of merit is higher than a medal but not as esteemed as the grade of Knight in an order of merit.- The Netherlands :...
for his actions in Bordeaux. In December of that year, the U.S. Ambassador to Portugal, Edward Rowell presented copies of the congressional resolution from the previous year to Pedro Nuno de Sousa Mendes, one of the sons who had helped in the assembly line at Bordeaux, and to President Mário Soares
Mário Soares
Mário Alberto Nobre Lopes Soares, GColTE, GCC, GColL, KE , Portuguese politician, served as Prime Minister of Portugal from 1976 to 1978 and from 1983 to 1985, and subsequently as the 17th President of Portugal from 1986 to 1996.-Family:...
at the Palácio de Belém. In 1994 former President Soares dedicated a bust of Sousa Mendes in Bordeaux, along with a commemorative plaque at 14 quai Louis-XVIII, the address at which the consulate at Bordeaux had been housed.
In 1995, a commemorative stamp was issued in Portugal.http://www.caleida.pt/filatelia/aleph/ficha?emi_00_01+7747
In 2004, the 50th anniversary of Sousa Mendes' death, the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation is a non-governmental organization which researches Holocaust rescuers and advocates for their recognition. The organization developed educational programs for school to promote peace and civil service...
and the Angelo Roncalli Committee organized more than 80 commemorations around the world. Religious, cultural and educational activities took place in 30 countries in the five continents.
A great homage was done in memory of Aristides Sousa Mendes at UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
Headquarters in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
on 11 May and 10 November 2005, in a benefit performance on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of UNESCO and the fortieth anniversary of Portugal's admittance. The baritone Jorge Chaminé
Jorge Chaminé
Jorge Chaminé is a Portuguese operatic baritone.Of Spanish and Portuguese parentage, he began his musical studies at an early age...
gave a recital at the Great Hall. The French writer Jean Lacouture
Jean Lacouture
Jean Lacouture is a journalist, historian and author. He is particularly famous for his biographies. - Biography :...
wrote that "in more than 50 years as a listener all over the world, I never heard such an incredible performance. What a marvellous homage to this great man!"
The mansion that Sousa Mendes had to abandon and sell in the poverty of his final years was left for decades to rot and decay, and at one time was to be razed and replaced by a hotel. However, with reparations
Reparation (legal)
In jurisprudence, reparation is replenishment of a previously inflicted loss by the criminal to the victim. Monetary restitution is a common form of reparation...
funds given by the Portuguese government to Sousa Mendes' heirs in 2000, the family decided to create the Aristides de Sousa Mendes Foundation (Fundação Aristides de Sousa Mendes, in Portuguese). With assistance from government officials, the foundation purchased the family home in order to develop a museum in his honor. The house was classified as a Portuguese National Monument on February 3, 2005. The two events at UNESCO raised a 6,000 euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
donation for the foundation; even so, the foundation's president said in 2006 that the organization was finding it difficult to raise sufficient additional funds for the renovation.
On 14 January 2007, he was voted into the top ten of the poll show Os Grandes Portugueses
Os Grandes Portugueses
Os Grandes Portugueses was a public poll contest organized by the Portuguese public broadcasting station RTP and hosted by Maria Elisa. Based on BBC's 100 Greatest Britons, it featured individual documentaries advocating the top ten candidates...
(The Greatest Portuguese), on 25 March 2007, the day of the results revelation, he was voted into third place, behind deceased communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
leader Álvaro Cunhal
Álvaro Cunhal
Álvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal, who used the name Álvaro Cunhal , was a Portuguese politician. He was one of the major opponents of the dictatorial regime of Estado Novo. He served as secretary-general of the Portuguese Communist Party from 1961 to 1992...
(runner-up) and deceased dictator António de Oliveira Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar, GColIH, GCTE, GCSE served as the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He also served as acting President of the Republic briefly in 1951. He founded and led the Estado Novo , the authoritarian, right-wing government that presided over and controlled Portugal...
(winner).
In February 2008, Portuguese Parliamentary Speaker Jaime Gama
Jaime Gama
Jaime José de Matos da Gama, GCC, GCIH, GCL, GCMG , is a Portuguese politician.-Background:...
led a session which launched a virtual Museum, on the World-Wide Web; it offers access to photographs and other documents chronicling Mendes' life. The site includes content in Portuguese, but translations into other languages are planned.
Notable people issued visas by Sousa Mendes
- Otto von HabsburgOtto von HabsburgOtto von Habsburg , also known by his royal name as Archduke Otto of Austria, was the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary from 1916 until the dissolution of the empire in 1918, a realm which comprised modern-day Austria, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia,...
, heir of the Austrian-Hungarian Emperor, who was detested by Hitler and condemned to death by him - Norbert Gingold, pianist
- Charles Oulmont, French writer
- The Belgian cabinet
- Sylvain Bromberger, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT
Quotations
I will not condone murder, therefore I disobey and continue to disobey Salazar.I would rather stand with God against man, than with man against God.
If thousands of Jews suffer because of a non-Jewish demon [Hitler], then surely a Christian can suffer with so many Jews.
I could not have acted otherwise, and I therefore accept all that has befallen me with love.
Further reading
- Fralon, Jose Alain (author) and Graham, Peter (translator). A Good Man in Evil Times: The Story of Aristides De Sousa Mendes—The Man Who Saved the Lives of Countless Refugees in World War II. 2001, Carroll & Graf Publishers, ISBN 0-7867-0848-4.
External links
- Aristides de Sousa Mendes Virtual Museum (in Portuguese) (archives, documents, interviews, testimonials)
- www.sousamendes.com (in Portuguese and French)
- Jewish Virtual Library: Aristides de Sousa Mendes
- Hero of the People Series: Aristides de Sousa Mendes
- Holocaust Rescuers Bibliography
- Aristides de Sousa Mendes Foundation