Aristides de Sousa Mendes

Diplomat and Lifesaving

Early life

Aristides de Sousa Mendes do Amaral e Abranches and his twin brother, Cesar, were born in Cabanas de Viriato, in the district of Viseu, Portugal, on July 9, 1885.

His family was catholic, conservative, monarchist and had aristocratic origins.

His mother, Maria Angelina Ribeiro de Abranches de Abreu Castelo-Branco, was a maternal granddaughter of the 2nd Viscount of Midões.

His father, José de Sousa Mendes, had been a Judge on the Supreme Court, and Sousa Mendes' twin brother César would become Foreign Minister in 1932–33 under the António de Oliveira Salazar regime.

Sousa Mendes and his twin-brother studied Law at the University of Coimbra.

Aristides had fourteen children with his cousin Angelina, with whom he had married in 1908.

After his marriage, he began the diplomatic career serving in Zanzibar, Kenya, Brazil and the United States, then he was assigned to Antwerp, Belgium.

In 1938, Sousa Mendes was assigned to the consulate of Bordeaux, in France.

World War II

At the outbreak of World War II and the invasion of France by the Nazi army, Sousa Mendes was still in Bordeaux.

Salazar maintained Portugal’s neutrality in the war.

Thousands of people tried to get visas, hoping to leave France by crossing its southern border into Spain, from there on to Portugal, and finally sailing for America.

The Portuguese Government ordered that consuls around the world were not to issue Portuguese visas to “foreigners of indefinite or contested nationality; the stateless; or Jews expelled from their countries of origin”.

“with God against man”

Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a devout and good-hearted Christian, seeing the despair of the refugees, ignored and defied the explicit instruction of Salazar.

In order to save those people, and despite all the difficulties, he frantically issued approximately 30 000 Portuguese visas for free charge to Jews and other persecuted minorities: political dissidents, army officers from occupied countries, and priests and nuns.

The diplomat claimed:

I will not condone murder, therefore I disobey and continue to disobey Salazar.

If thousands of Jews are suffering because of one Christian [Hitler], surely one Christian may suffer for so many Jews

Aristides de Sousa Mendes

Dishonour and disgrace

The price that Aristides had to pay for saving lives wasn’t small:

Salazar lost political trust in the diplomat and forced him to quit his career. He also ordered that no one in Portugal would show Sousa Mendes any charity;

Sousa Mendes was prevented from registration, so he couldn’t resume his law career;

He was made to surrender his foreign-issue drivers’ license.

After suffering a stroke that left him partially paralyzed, the formerly much-honoured diplomat spent his later years abandoned by most of his colleagues and friends.

Living in extreme poverty, Sousa Mendes was only aided by a Jewish agency, which helped his children to move to other countries in search of opportunities they were now denied in Portugal.

Angelina, his wife, died in 1948.

Stripped of his pension, he died in poverty on April 3, 1954, still in disgrace with the Portuguese government.

I could not have acted otherwise, and I therefore accept all that has befallen me with love.

Posthumous honours

1966 – Sousa Mendes was honoured at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial to the Holocaust as one of the "Righteous Among The Nations," one of the first steps in the long journey.

1987 – The Portuguese Republic granted a posthumous Order of Liberty medal, on of the country’s highest honours.

1988 - Thanks to external pressure and his children’s efforts, his government granted him total rehabilitation:

- The Portuguese parliament officially dismissed all charges, restoring him to the diplomatic corps by unanimous vote and honouring him with a standing ovation;

- He was promoted to the rank of Ambassador;

- He was also issued the Cross of Merit for his actions in Bordeaux.

1994 – The former President Mário Soares dedicated a bust of Sousa Mendes in Bordeaux, along with a commemorative plaque at the address at which the consulate at Bordeaux had been housed.

1995 – A commemorative stamp was issued in Portugal.

2000 – With reparation funds given by the Portuguese government to Sousa Mendes’ heirs, the family decided to create the Aristides de Sousa Mendes Foundation. With assistance from government officials, the foundation purchased the family home (that Sousa Mendes had to sell in the poverty of his final years and was then left to rot and decay) in order to develop a museum in his honour.

2004 – The 50th anniversary of Sousa Mendes' death: the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation and the Angelo Roncalli Committee organized more than 80 commemorations around the world. Religious, cultural and educational activities took place in 30 countries in the five continents.

2005 - The family mansion was classified as a Portuguese National Monument.

A great homage was done in memory of Aristides Sousa Mendes at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, in a benefit performance on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of UNESCO and the fortieth anniversary of Portugal's admittance.

2007 – He was voted into the top ten of the poll show Os Grandes Portugueses (English: The Greatest Portuguese) an then into third place.