Dr. Aristides de Sousa
Mendes, Portuguese Consul General in Bordeaux, France, 1938 - June 1941
Aristides De Sousa Mendes (1885-1954)
was born into a prominent Portuguese family. His father had been of nobility and served in the Portuguese supreme court.
For a period, his brother, Cesar, had been the Foreign Minister of Portugal. Mendes was a career diplomat. He was the
Consul General for Portugal in Bordeaux, France.
Between June 17 and 19, 1940, Mendes issued thousands of life-saving
Portuguese visas for Jews and other refugees. Mendes saved the entire royal Habsburg family, including the crown prince
and Empress Zita. In addition, he saved the entire Belgian cabinet in exile. Mendes personally conducted hundreds
of Jewish refugees across a border checkpoint on the Spanish frontier.
All of his life-saving activities were
done against the orders and policies of Portugal. After a trial, he was fired by the Portuguese government. He
was unable to work and eventually lost all of his property. He died in poverty in Lisbon in 1954.
In November
of 1995, Portugal posthumously restored his career and awarded him a special medal for saving lives.
De Sousa Mendes
was declared Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel in 1967. In 2000, Mendes was voted by his countrymen
to be the second most important Portuguese individual of the 20th Century.