Aristides
de Sousa Mendes - A Testimonial
by Mariana Abrantes de
Sousa*
I first heard of Aristides de Sousa
Mendes do Amaral e Abranches in 1986, from a Portuguese-American friend who was
visiting me in New York. She was
living in the northern California suburb of Livermore and had only one other
Portuguese-speaking neighbour,
John Paul Abranches, the consul’s youngest son who was then collecting
signatures in a persistent campaign to petition for the recognition and
rehabilitation of his father by the Portuguese Government. No, I knew nothing of this man, and
no, we couldn’t be related despite
the similarity of our family
names. But when I asked my eldest brother who was
living in California if he knew anything of a Portuguese diplomat who had saved
thousands of refugees at the beginning of World War II, he answered: “Yes, I
know who he was, and you do too.
Don’t you remember that big
house in Cabanas de Viriato that we used to call the mystery mansion, near the Mardi Gras fair grounds?”
Of course I remembered ! But what an
incredible explanation to the mystery of the huge haunted house that my 5th grade classmates and
I saw daily from the windows of
our school bus. Why had
nobody told us about it before ? I had many Jewish friends and neighbours in
California, Princeton and New York, including some who had passed through
Portugal during the war and still spoke Portuguese. Everyone knew about Raoul Wallenberg, but why did no one
know about Aristides de Sousa Mendes ?
An
act of conscience
This oblivion shows that Aristides de
Sousa Mendes paid a heavy price for choosing to follow his conscience and
issuing entry visas to Portugal to all the refugees who besieged the Portuguese
Consulate in Bordeaux in those fateful days of June 1940. The entry visa to Portugal was
essential to exit France at Bayonne or Hendaye frontier points because the
right wing Franco regime had closed Spain, which had suffered a horrible civil
war, to the enormous influx
of refugees. Having been warned not to issue such
visas, but feeling the desperate plight of the refugees, Aristides de Sousa
Mendes battled with his conscience for several days.
On June 17th, and with the
support of his wife Angelina and his family, he decided to issue visas to all
comers, in a marathon effort mobilizing all hands, first in the offices and corridors of the
Portuguese Consulate in Bordeaux and later on the roads leading out of France.
For disobeying the Government order
not to issue visas to Jews and other “undesirables”, Sousa Mendes was
immediately recalled from his
post, subjected to a disciplinary
process and sacked from the diplomatic service. Prohibited from practicing law, he died in poverty in
1954, and his name was practically buried along with him.
The persecution by the Salazar
government extended to his numerous children. Their fate was similar to that of
many in the Lisbon Jewish Community, much enlarged with the presence of the
refugees, and several of the sons emigrated to the US and Canada.
His
children recorded and publicized
these events , writing books and letters, and the reports of the large
migration into Portugal eventually became well known and recorded.
But, Sousa Mendes was ostracised and his name and his story was
unknown to most of us, a virtual taboo in Portugal until the 1970s. Although Yad Vashem, the Israeli
Holocaust Remembrance Authority recognized Aristides de Sousa Mendes as a
Righteous Among the Nations in 1967, it was only in 1988 when the Portuguese
Parliament voted unanimously to reinstate Sousa Mendes posthumously in the
Portuguese diplomatic service.
Today, Aristides de Sousa Mendes is
considered to have undertaken one of the most important rescue actions of the
war period. It was one of the
first major cracks in the “siege” of Europe which made the refugees unwelcome
everywhere, as was the experience of the boatloads that wandered from port to
port in search of a haven. Thanks
to Aristides de Sousa Mendes, it is estimated that more than 30.000 refugees
found their first haven in Portugal.
The
mystery mansion
The “mystery mansion” in Cabanas de
Viriato is an imposing and elegant building, with a mansard roof in the French
style and with a lovely view of
Serra da Estrela, Portugal’s highest mountain. It was the home for Sousa Mendes large family and many
visitors. It was sold at a
creditors’ auction, and over the years it lay decaying, with water coming in
through the windows and through an enormous hole in the roof.
At one point, the owners developed a
plan to create a small hotel, but by then Aristides de Sousa Mendes had been
rehabilitated and his family home had become an historic site.
When the Portuguese Government
finally reversed its decision, the Foreign Ministry paid compensation for the undue dismissal to his heirs. The Sousa Mendes family chose to
use these funds to endow the
Fundação Aristides de Sousa Mendes, which it created in 2000. With an additional subsidy from the
Ministry, the Foundation was just able to buy back the Sousa Mendes family home
with the objective of creating the Sousa Mendes Museum, in permanent tribute to
the heroic acts of conscience of a great man.
Creating
the Aristides de Sousa Mendes Museum
The Fundação Aristides de Sousa Mendes is based in Cabanas de Viriato
has the mission of rebuilding the
Sousa Mendes family home to house the Sousa Mendes Museum . Work on the museum is still in the
development stage and the reconstruction which is quite complex will take
several years. The building is
under classification by IPPAR as a
Portuguese National Heritage site.
The Sousa Mendes mansion and the
nearby cemetery has become part of the tourist circuits and receives frequent
visitors, some of them Jews judging from the pebbles placed next to the Sousa
Mendes family mausoleum.
Although the house remains in ruins, visitors can imagine the grandeur
of the house in former times and appreciate the extraordinary location, the
greenery of the country roads, and the view of Serra da Estrela, the local
gastronomy and the Dão wines. They
can go horseback riding in Beijós, they can take the waters in the Termas de
Sangemil and Felgueiras, and they can visit t with its historic city center and
the Grão Vasco Museum.
50th anniversary memorial
activities: June 17th ,
the Day of Conscience
April 3rd, 2004 is the 5th
anniversary of the death of Aristides de Sousa Mendes. There are memorial activities in
Portuguese and Jewish communities all over the world. The program in Cabanas de Viriato and the Carregal do Sal
council started in January 2004 in Beijós, the nearby village where his wife
and first cousin Angelina de Sousa Mendes was born. There is a national essay contest for secondary school
students and speeches, debates, theatre plays, concerts and school activities
are scheduled throughout the region, Portugal and elsewhere.
Noteworthy, is the scheduling of
numerous religious and ecumenical ceremonies in numerous cities on June 17th,
the anniversary of the day when Sousa Mendes abandoned all caution and
undertook a 3-day marathon of signing and stamping any document presented to
him. You can feel anxiety and
haste as the handwriting becomes more hurried and less legible on the Consulate
lists of visas granted.
This is seen as his Day of
Conscience, the day when he struggled with himself and made his choice “to stand with God against man rather
than with man against God”.
It is this decision of
conscience that remains such a
valuable example in our increasingly troubled times, an example we should remember everyday as we face our
own dilemmas, fortunately in usually less dramatic circumstances.
Learning
from Aristides de Sousa Mendes
Under the repressive Salazar regime
which governed Portugal for nearly 50 years, the children on that school bus
learned early not to ask inconvenient questions, especially in front of
strangers who might feed the information to the feared secret police,
PIDE. The taboo is long
gone, and today’s 5th graders have many opportunities to learn about
him and from his example.
Fortunately, the Sousa Mendes name was not erased; it is part of the
contemporary history curriculum in the schools of Portugal and in many other
countries. His story and
testimonies about him and about other courageous diplomats who saved innocent
lives from malicious persecution can be easily found in various languages on
the internet, available to all.
When proudly showing me her essay on
Aristides de Sousa Mendes, “graded the best in the class”, little Susana Pais, a bright 5th
grader who goes to the Aristides de Sousa Mendes Middle School in Cabanas de
Viriato, reported that she searched the internet and “found and printed
17 pages”!
* Raised in Beijós, Carregal do Sal and California, economist and volunteer member of the
Grupo de Amigos da Fundação
Aristides de Sousa Mendes
Please see www.sousamendes.com