Aristides de Sousa Mendes

Who was Aristides de Sousa Mendes?

Aristides de Sousa Mendes do Amaral e Abranches, GCC, OL was a Portuguese consul. As Portuguese Consul-General in Bordeaux, France, he 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. In the Spring of 1940, he issued Portuguese visas to thousands of refugees seeking to escape the Nazi terror.

Yad Vashem historian Dr. Avraham Milgram believes that "the number of visas granted by the consul was lower than the numbers mentioned in the literature" and that "the discrepancy between the reality and the myth of the number of visas granted by Sousa Mendes is great". Unfortunately, the number of visas cannot be accurately determined because the surviving Visa Registry Book is incomplete; numerous visas covered entire families; and many families were unable to cross into Portugal after the Portuguese regime issued orders for the French/Spanish border to be closed.

The Holocaust authority Yehuda Bauer has described Sousa Mendes' deed as "perhaps the largest rescue action by a single individual during the Holocaust." Portugal's president Mário Soares called Sousa Mendes "Portugal's greatest hero of the twentieth century."