Aristides de Sousa Mendes

A biography of Mendes (1885-1954), describing his family background, and his career. Mendes was the Portuguese consul general in Bordeaux between 1938-40. In November 1939 a decree was issued by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Lisbon forbidding the issuance of Portuguese visas to various categories of people, among them stateless Jews. Mendes did not obey this order and gave visas to about 10,000 persons seeking refuge from Nazi-occupied Europe. For his lack of subordination to this decree, Mendes was recalled to Portugal in July 1940. He was obliged to retire, and lived to the end of his life in very difficult conditions. He asked for amnesty but never received it during Salazar's regime. His official rehabilitation by the Portuguese government occurred only in 1988. In 1966 he was posthumously awarded the title of "Righteous among the Nations" by Yad Vashem. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)