The
Portuguese consul-general in Bordeaux
during
WW2 who saved over 30,000 lives.
"It was actually my intention to save all those people"
Aristides
de Sousa Mendes do
Amaral e Abranches (July 19, 1885 –
April 3, 1954) was a Portuguese consul during World War II.
As
the Portuguese consul-general in the French city of Bordeaux, he
defied the orders of António de Oliveira Salazar's Estado Novo
regime, issuing visas and passports to an undetermined number of
refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, including Jews. For this, Sousa
Mendes was punished by the Salazar regime. Sousa Mendes was vindicated in 1988,
more than a decade after the Carnation Revolution that toppled the
Estado Novo.
For
his efforts to save Jewish refugees, Sousa Mendes was recognized by
Israel as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, the first diplomat
to be so honored, in 1966.
___________
'Portugal's Schindler' Is Remembered, Decades After His Life-Saving Deeds
August
4, 2016 5:21 AM ET
Heard
on Morning Edition
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY
Those
who were helped by Portugal's consul general, Aristides de Sousa
Mendes, during World War II assemble outside the former Portuguese
consulate in Bordeaux. Sousa Mendes issued 10,000 visas to Jews
including Stephen Rozenfeld (center front, in blue), George Helft
(center front, in white) and Lissy Jarvik (3rd from right), before
being recalled and dismissed from the diplomatic service. Eleanor
Beardsley/NPR
A group of about 50
people gathered in late June in the sunny courtyard of the Portuguese
consulate in Bordeaux, France. It was from here in 1939 and 1940 that
Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes do Amaral e Abranches
issued approximately 30,000 visas to Jews and other stateless
refugees.
Lissy Jarvik, who
lives today in California, was one of them.
"I was a
recipient of a Sousa Mendes visa," she tells the group.
"Otherwise I wouldn't be here. I would've no longer been alive
72 years ago."
Jarvik was just 16
when her Jewish family fled their home in the Netherlands in 1940.
She's come back to France today with her two sons. They are part of a
group, including visa recipients and their descendants, making a
10-day pilgrimage tracing the escape route taken through France,
Spain and Portugal. It was from Portugal that they finally got out of
Europe.
This group is also
paying tribute to Sousa Mendes, the man who made their lives
possible.
Aristides
de Sousa Mendes in
1940.
Courtesy
of Sousa Mendes Foundation
But that is changing.
Jarvik says she
always assumed the Portuguese government had issued her family's
visas to get out of France. Portugal was neutral during the war. But
its Fascist dictator, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, had actually
issued orders banning
Jews, Russians and stateless people from entering the country.
Sousa Mendes, his
country's consul general in Bordeaux, knowingly disobeyed those
orders, frantically signing visas day and night just before he was
recalled to Lisbon in late June 1940.
At each stop along
the way of this pilgrimage, covering a route including Bordeaux,
Salamanca and Lisbon, people give testimonials. Some read old letters
from late family members who escaped. But George Helft reaches back
into his own memory. He was 6 when his family fled Paris, as the
Nazis entered the city in June 1940.
"It's difficult
for me to describe the roads then," he says. "But I
remember them very, very well. They were filled with baby carriages,
old cars with mattresses on the roof and six people inside. Thousands
of people were walking, some with wheelbarrows, and of course
everyone going south."
Helft's extended
family got out of France and was able to reach New York. He only
recently found out this was all because of Sousa Mendes.
Olivia Mattis,
president of the Sousa Mendes Foundation,
based in Huntington, N.Y., says it wasn't until 2011 that volunteers
with the recently formed organization began to identify visa
recipients. They were able to do so by comparing the names on a
ledger from the Bordeaux Portuguese consulate, found in the
mid-1990s, with ship passenger lists. While the ledger only gave the
name of the head of the family, the ships listed every single
passenger.
Retired
U.S. newspaper editor Rebel Good (right) holds his Dutch-born
mother's passport, showing the signature of Sousa Mendes. His mother
never spoke about her escape from Europe. After her death, "I
opened the passport up to the center, and the visa was there with
Aristides de Sousa Mendes' signature on it," says Good. "It
was a very moving and chilling moment." Eleanor
Beardsley/NPR
Retired American
newspaper editor Rebel Good remembers getting a call four years ago
at his home in North Carolina.
"It was from
someone who said he was with a foundation," says Good. "At
first, I thought he was asking me for money. But he brought me up
short by asking me pretty quickly if I were the son of Annelies
Kaufmann."
Good says his late
mother never talked about her escape from Europe. After the call, he
dug out her old Dutch passport.
"And I opened
the passport up to the center, and the visa was there with Aristides
de Sousa Mendes' signature on it," says Good. "It was a
very moving and chilling moment to see that connection just come
forward."
Since 2011, nearly
4,000 visa recipients have been identified. Another is 82-year-old
Stephen Rozenberg. When he was 5, he fled Lodz, Poland, with his
family.
Stephen
Rozenberg and daughter Leah Sills were among those gathered to honor
Sousa Mendes' memory. Rozenberg holds a photograph showing him and
his mother when he was five, when he and his family received
Portuguese visas and fled France. Eleanor
Beardsley/NPR
"We never knew what happened to our family when they got to Bordeaux," says Leah Sills, his daughter, who accompanied her father on the pilgrimage. "We never knew that part. And to find out that this one man sacrificed his own family and his own life for all these people is incredible."
When he was called
back to Portugal in June 1940, Sousa Mendes was tried on 15 charges
including violating Portugal's prohibition on visas for Jews and
other stateless people. He was found guilty and dismissed from the
diplomatic service. A father of 15, he was stripped of his pension
and lived in poverty until his death in 1954. At his own urging, 11
of his children emigrated — some to countries in Africa and others
to the U.S. and Canada.
Gerald Mendes, one of
Sousa Mendes' many far-flung grandchildren, is also on the
pilgrimage. He was born and grew up in Montreal. He says his
grandfather was officially rehabilitated by the Portuguese government
in 1988, and the family received an official apology from the
president. The connections and stories pouring forth on this trip are
important for his grandfather's legacy, he says.
"The story of
each refugee is a new brick in the story of Sousa Mendes," he
says. "But all these testimonies are especially important,
because the story needs to be documented for the future to fight
Holocaust deniers. Especially as survivors die out."
Many members of this
group are struck by the parallel with what's happening with refugees
around the world today. Visa recipient Helft ends his testimonial
with a plea for acceptance.
"Forget about
walls," he says. "Walls with Mexico, walls in Israel. Of
course, accepting a flow of refugees, there are undesirables. How
many? One percent? Think of all the others. Think of the children who
are escaping horrors."
in
n
p
r parallels
MANY STORIES,
ONE WORLD
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/08/04/486735086/remembering-portugals-schindler
____________
Ana Vassalo
Aug 4, 2016
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