Aristedes Mendes:

                The Man Who Saved 10,000 Jews

by Dr. David Shapiro, 1986

When France fell to the Nazis in 1940, French Jews and Jewish refugees from all parts of Europe who had fled to France, found themselves trapped. The French moved their government south to Bordeaux, and around 30,000 refugees, a third of them Jewish, fled there in desperation. Only one escape route presented itself: over the Pyrenees to Spain, and from there to Portugal. The refugees in the city besieged the Portuguese consulate for visas, but the Portuguese government ordered its consuls to turn down any and all requests for visas from Jews.

Aristedes Sousa Mendes, however, the Portuguese consul-general to France and a devout Catholic, greeted a delegation of the refugees in the outer hall of the Consulate. "My government has denied all applications for visas to any refugee. But I cannot stand by while people lose their lives. Even if I am discharged from my duties as a consequence, I can only act as a Christian and as my conscience dictates."

Assisted by two of his sons, he worked for three days, stopping only briefly to eat and sleep. On the third day he collapsed, exhausted and sick.

Word of his activities reached Lisbon, and two emissaries were sent to bring Mendes back to the capital for having violated orders. They escorted him to their car, and while passing through Bayonne on their way to Spain encountered a scene similar to the one recently witnessed in Bordeaux. Mendes strode into the vice consul's office and, as his superior, ordered him to grant visas to all the applicants.

The next day, after all the refugees had been accommodated, Mendes and the two officials resumed their journey. When they reached Hendaye, on the Spanish border, they found a huge throng of refugees - many of whom had been granted visas by Mendes himself - being prevented from crossing the border. Mendes, however, correctly surmised that the orders to seal the border had gotten no further than Hendaye, and he led the crowd to the next border entry. Presenting his credentials, he succeeded in getting the refugees through to safety.

Upon reaching Lisbon, Mendes was brought before an inquiry committee and was fired from the Portuguese foreign service for disobeying orders. He died neglected and poverty-stricken in 1954. Mendes never regretted his actions. He once said that if thousands of Jews had to suffer because of one Catholic (Hitler belonged to the Catholic Church), then it was perfectly all right for one Catholic to suffer for thousands of Jews.

In 1961 the Government of Israel planted twenty trees in the Martyr's Forest in honor of Aristedes Sousa Mendes. There were far too few gentiles involved in helping Jews escape Nazi persecution but those such as Mendes will be remembered and their memory honored by the whole House of Israel.
 

W.Z.O. Department of Information

Jerusalem 

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