Portugal finally recognises consul who saved thousands from Holocaust | Hacker News Reader

Portugal finally recognises consul who saved thousands from Holocaust

bbc.com

123 pointsAnon8415 comments

"As Portugal's consul in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes faced a moral dilemma. Should he obey government orders or listen to his own conscience and supply Jews with the visas that would allow them to escape from advancing German forces? ... But his initiative also spelt the end of a diplomatic career under Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar, and the rest of his life was spent in penury."

Sounds exactly like Chiune Sugihara's story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiune_Sugihara

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/04/chiune-sugihar...

From the wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristides_de_Sousa_Mendes#Enco...

"Sousa Mendes was listed in the Portuguese Consular and Diplomatic Yearbook until 1954.[107][108] After the one year punishment with half-pay, he received a monthly payment of 1,593 Portuguese escudos per month.[109][110][111] According to Rui Afonso, "although it was not a salary of a prince, one should not forget that at that time, in Portugal, the monthly salary of a school teacher was only 500 Escudos".[109] When he died, in 1954 he was receiving a monthly salary of 2,300 escudos."

There is a bit more information on Aristides De Sousa Mendes on Yad Vashem's site:

https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories/mendes.html

His Wikipedia page is fascinating:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristides_de_Sousa_Mendes

There is even a small park dedicated to him in my hometown of Montreal (not far from where I used to live):

https://goo.gl/maps/Xa1q7imrjT73Sf5M7

The word "finally" makes it seem that Aristides Sousa Mendes work was not recognized by Portugal. Maybe it hadn't been officially recognized until now, but we are very proud of his actions.

But not as proud as over Salazar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Os_Grandes_Portugueses

If you read the post you see that those results were likely from repeat voters organized for that.

Sadly populism is growing everywhere

I don't think people should take much from this.

It was a poll, made by a public TV channel (RTP) where people phoned in. This skews a lot to the older population (and idiots). While I am not in favour of the dictatorship we had at all, many in the old generation weren't so against it since their lives weren't affected by it so far (except the ones fighting in the colonies, but they blame the 'blacks' more than Salazar on that.

My father (close to 70 now) says he felt safer during Salazar's time than now (which may be true). For that generation, saying 'the only good cop is a dead cop' in a march isn't important at all, it is even insulting and they will say that he deserves a beating, so their values and wants are different than 20-30 years old with our freedom of speech and gay kissing.

"No-one really knows what went through his mind in those two or three days"

Actually, it's kinda known. The consul was very religious, and he believed he learned God's will during these days - to help people fleeing from Germans.

Those who are Righteous Among the Nations are a list of people who show how great humans can be, when others are showing how monstrous. I find their stories difficult reading, but intensely rewarding.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righteous_Among_the_Nations

This is lovely. I'm impressed that they can choose to live in Israel and receive a pension if they so desire. That's a solid reward.

There are so many stories like this that played out with events such as wide ranging as WWII, I had never heard this one before.

Yes... Even in Portugal he wasn't that well known, not until he was voted 3rd Greatest Portuguese(TM) some years ago: right after Portuguese 30+years dictator Salazar (his nemesis) and Salazar's "nemesis" Communist Party leader Alvaro Cunhal.

> Even in Portugal he wasn't that well known, not until he was voted 3rd Greatest Portuguese(TM) some years ago

That doesn't sound coherent at all.

Sarcasm often isn't (to the uninitiated?)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com