Remembering a warrior against the Holocaust

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This article was published 27/01/2022 (1697 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

He was discredited during his lifetime for defying his own government, but the story of how Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes saved thousands of Jews from the Nazis sets an example of how to respond to people in need, says the Winnipeg-based consul of Portugal.

“He helped me to learn people are looking out for other people,” said Paulo Jorge Cabral of the diplomat who had been stationed in Bordeaux, France during the Second World War.

“Even if they’re not the same race and not the same religion, we would like to help people in need.”

A movie about Sousa Mendes’s life and work will be screened at two free virtual events today, organized by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The 104-minute French-made film titled Disobedience: the Sousa Mendes Story will be screened with English subtitles at 5 p.m., followed by an English-language question period. A French-only event is earlier in the day, at 11 a.m.

In May of 1940, faced with thousands of refugees at the French border, Sousa Mendes decided to issue visa and passports to anyone who asked. Over two months, the long-serving diplomat helped 30,000 people, about a third of them Jews, acquire safe entry to Portugal. In doing so, he was acting against the directives of his own government, who saw these refugees as undesirable. Sousa Mendes believed his conscience and Roman Catholic faith compelled him to use his diplomatic powers to assist people in need.

“In a short period of time, to issue passports and visas to 30,000 people is remarkable, because you need time,” Cabral said of Sousa Mendes’s actions, which required he sign and stamp every document in a matter of weeks.

“He made sure everyone he could help would escape the Nazi invasion.”

Not only was Sousa Mendes recalled to Portugal and then fired for issuing the documents, his 15 children were denied jobs and entry to university, causing the whole family to suffer, said Belle Jarniewski of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada, which is partnering with the museum and the Honorary Consulate of Portugal to host the event.

“It was such an act of courage,” she said of his actions.

“He sacrificed his career and the future of his family by defying his government.”

In 1966, Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Memorial Centre in Israel, recognized the former diplomat as Righteous Among the Nations, a dozen years after Sousa Mendes died penniless in a Lisbon hospital.

Sousa Mendes credited Rabbi Chaim Kruger as inspiration for his actions, after the rabbi refused a visa to Portugal until all Jewish refugees in Bordeaux received their papers.

Those are the type of examples the museum promotes in its exhibits and events, said Maia Horning, CMHR interpretative program developer.

“It’s important to take the opportunity to celebrate those like Sousa Mendes who risked everything to take a stand for the rights and dignity of others,” she said.

Last October, Sousa Mendes was honoured by the Portuguese government with a ceremony at the National Pantheon in Lisbon, a memorial for national heroes and public personalities.

Register for the free public event at www.humanrights.ca.

brenda.suderman@freepress.mb.ca