Aristides de Sousa Mendes: Portuguese Diplomat Who Saved Jews During World War II

During the Second World War, Aristides de Sousa Mendes was Portugal’s counsul-general in the French city of Bordeaux. Antonio Salazar, Portugal’s authoritarian leader, forbade the issuance of Portuguese visas to refugees desperate to escape Nazi Germany. Sousa Mendes defied his own government and provided tens of thousands of such life-saving documents — including to many…