Aristides de Sousa Mendes (Screenshot).
Joel Kontinen
Portugal honoured Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a former
diplomat for the country, who helped save thousands of Jews from the Nazis
during Second World War,
He probably saved 30 000 refugees of which 10,000 were Jewish. The numbers were the greatest anyone could save during the holocauust.
“People who at the decisive moment put their and their family’s safety at risk for the greater good are rare. Sousa Mendes was one of those people,” said Speaker of the Portuguese Parliament Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, reported AP on Tuesday.
A tomb with his name was placed in the country’s National Pantheon.
Portugal was a neutral country during the Second World War. Mendes disobeyed orders made by his superiors, including from dictator António Salazar, when he was a consul in Bordeaux, France. In 1940, he issued visas to those who feared that the Nazis would hunt for them. The Portuguese visas allowed Jews and others to escape via Lisbon on the way to the United States and other countries.
Mendes was fired as a result and died in poverty in 1954, according to the report. The Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem recognizes him as a Righteous Gentile and is noted in “The Righteous Among the Nations.”
In 2017, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo announced Mendes being given the country’s highest honour: the Grand Cross of the Order of Liberty.
Frank Foley was a British spy who saved 6,000 Jews, and Sir Nicholas Winton also saved 669 of the Jewish children in Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia.
Source:
JNS. 2021. Portugal honors diplomat who saved Jews from Nazis, Israel 365 News, 20 October.
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