In a small ceremony held late yesterday to honor what would have been the 125th birthday of Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes, diplomats from Portugal and Brazil and other special guests gathered at the Museum of Jewish Heritage to pay tribute to the Consul General of Portugal who was responsible for writing out visas for some 30,000 refugees, including 10,000 Jews, from his consulate in Bordeaux, allowing thousands of families to seek shelter from the war.
His ledger, a leather-bound book with delicate handwriting, filled with names of visa recipients, is “evidence of his everyday work, and evidence of those who he saved,” said David G. Marwell, MJH director, at the intimate event. The ledger is now on display in our “Rescuers Gallery” alongside the stories of Chiune Sugihara, Raoul Wallenberg, and Luiz Martin Souza Dantes, other courageous diplomats who risked their careers and lives to save Jews.
The UN Ambassador to Portugal, Jose Filipe Moraes Cabral, spoke briefly to say that as a Portuguese and as a diplomat he was “happy and proud to be here” and told the group that the members of the Portuguese and diplomatic communities were proud to include people like de Sousa Mendes in their ranks. As a side note, whenever Ambassador Cabral referred to the man of the hour, with his delightful pronunciation, it sounded as if he was saying “a super mensch,” which is not far off.
The event was organized by the charming João Crisóstomo, who has made a career of enlightening the world about the acts of men like de Sousa Mendes.
Although he selflessly saved thousands, Sousa Mendes was brought before a disciplinary panel in Lisbon and dismissed from his position in the Foreign Ministry. This left him destitute and unable to support his family of 13 children. He died penniless in 1954. On October 18, 1966, Yad Vashem recognized Aristides de Sousa Mendes as Righteous Among the Nations. Only in 1988, thanks to external pressure and his children’s efforts, did his government grant him total rehabilitation.
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Our thanks to the Museum of Jewish Heritage for showing the Sousa Mendes visa Registry again.
This historical "artifact" provides a compelling testimony of the desperate days of 1940, the first pages written in a neat and orderly handwriting, with all the appropriate details. This gave away to rushed and abbreviated entries as the Sousa Mendes marathon really got underway, after 17-June-1940, which we recall now as the Day of Conscience.
See the blog of the Amigos de Sousa Mendes, http://amigosdesousamendes.blogspot.com/2010/07/livro-de-registos-regressa-new-york-3.html
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