“ In the Era of the Holocaust, 29 Who Made a Difference
By PETER STEINFELS (February 3, 2007)
The book is called “Diplomat Heroes of the Holocaust,” and perhaps the most telling thing about it is that it is very slim.
Richard C. Holbrooke, former ambassador to the United Nations, made that point during a ceremony, held Jan. 24 at Park East Synagogue on Manhattan’s East Side, to mark the book’s publication.
During the years of Nazi persecution and then mass murder of Jews, Mr. Holbrooke noted, Europe’s embassies and consulates were filled with thousands of officials, but very few of them proved willing to toss aside protocol and instructions to save the lives of people threatened with death in the camps.
“Diplomat Heroes of the Holocaust” is a documentary record of 29 exceptions. It was written by Mordecai Paldiel, director of the department at Yad Vashem — the main Holocaust memorial museum in Israel — that designates non-Jewish rescuers of Jews with the honorific title Righteous Among the Nations.
Stationed in cities either already or about to be under the control of the Third Reich, this small minority of determined and ingenious officials issued passports giving Jewish refugees new citizenship status, sometimes to unlikely places, like El Salvador. (…)
But the diplomat hero that Mr. Holbrooke highlighted in his remarks was Aristides de Sousa Mendes, an aristocratic Portuguese consul general in Bordeaux, France, from 1938 to July 1940. In May 1940, he faced pitiable crowds of refugees from the German invasion of France, many of them Jews camped in the streets and parks and desperate for visas allowing escape into Spain and Portugal.
He also faced an absolute prohibition by Portugal’s dictator, António de Oliveira Salazar, against issuing transit visas to refugees and especially to Jews.
In mid-June, the consul general agonized for several days, cut himself off from the world, at one moment agitated, at the next despondent. Suddenly he proceeded to his office and announced: “I’m giving everyone visas. There will be no more nationalities, races or religions.”
The next days were frenzied. All day and into the night, visas were issued. Fees were waived. No one filled in names. Sousa Mendes traveled to the Spanish border to make certain that refugees were able to cross. He confronted Spanish border guards when needed — and continued to sign visas.
Lisbon was upset and on June 23 stripped him of his authority. Returning to his property in Portugal the next month, he only disturbed the authorities more by acknowledging his deeds and defending them straightforwardly on humanitarian and religious grounds. Dismissed from the diplomatic service and with 12 children to support, he had to sell his family estate and eventually died in poverty, supported by an allowance from Lisbon’s Jewish community, where he ate at a soup kitchen.
“Diplomat Heroes of the Holocaust,” with an introduction by Mr. Holbrooke, is published by KTAV and the Rabbi Arthur Schneier Center for International Affairs of Yeshiva University. Rabbi Schneier, senior rabbi of Park East Synagogue and founder of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, has been active for decades on behalf of religious freedom and interreligious dialogue. (…) “ link (NY Times)
