Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff. Lauren Boglebaum. Here.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty, less than a year into what would
Speaker 1: become the deadliest war ever waged, a lifelong Portuguese diplomat
Speaker 1: named Arstidis di Susa Mendez, assigned to a consulate in Bordeaux, France,
Speaker 1: was faced with a rending choice defy orders, thereby risking
Speaker 1: his position, his very livelihood, and the safety of his
Speaker 1: wife and twelve children, or carry out his duties and
Speaker 1: leave the fate of tens of thousands of refugees to
Speaker 1: advancing Nazi forces. Over eighty years later, Susa mendez story
Speaker 1: remains largely unknown, but because of his choice, which almost
Speaker 1: certainly saved the lives of many of those refugees and
Speaker 1: their families, including thousands of Jewish people, his is a
Speaker 1: story that directly touches many thousands more today. For the
Speaker 1: article this episode is based on How Stuff Works, spoke
Speaker 1: doctor Olivia Mattis, the President and chief operating officer of
Speaker 1: the Susan Mendes Foundation. She said, he's a hero. He's
Speaker 1: a man who risked everything and lost everything and displayed
Speaker 1: incredible moral courage. That's really the key phrase moral courage,
Speaker 1: the idea that one person can make a difference. Anyone
Speaker 1: can display moral courage if the opportunity presents itself. You
Speaker 1: can choose to go left, or you can choose to
Speaker 1: go right. There's always the easy choice and the hard choice.
Speaker 1: Arstatistics sus amndes do amoral I Abranus was born in
Speaker 1: Portugal in eighteen eighty five, and apologies, my Portuguese is terrible.
Speaker 1: I did try on that pronunciation anyway. After graduating with
Speaker 1: a law degree, he was deployed to Portuguese consulates around
Speaker 1: the world at Zanzibar, Brazil, San Francisco, Spain, and Belgium.
Speaker 1: In January of nineteen thirty eight, he was assigned to
Speaker 1: that Portuguese consulate in Bordeaux, France. The following year, Germany
Speaker 1: under Adolf Hitler invaded Poland, a prompting Portugal, trying to
Speaker 1: remain neutral in the burgeoning conflict that would become World
Speaker 1: War Two, to distribute what was known as Circular fourteen.
Speaker 1: This order decreed the Portuguese consuls deny travel into Portugal
Speaker 1: for refugees fleeing the Nazi occupied countries in Europe. By
Speaker 1: summer of nineteen forty. Throughout Europe, some six to ten
Speaker 1: million people were on the move, trying to stay ahead
Speaker 1: of the Nazis who had walked into Paris on June fourteenth.
Speaker 1: In southern France, the streets of Bordeaux were crammed with
Speaker 1: people trying to make it to the border. They slipped
Speaker 1: through Spain and into Portugal, where they hoped to obtain
Speaker 1: passage by ship to safer places. Knowing what could happen
Speaker 1: to him and his family if he defied Circular fourteen,
Speaker 1: but seeing the terror unfold before him, uz Amendes was torn.
Speaker 1: He had befriended a Polish rabbi by the name of
Speaker 1: Heimhertz Kruger and offered visus to him and his family,
Speaker 1: but Krueger turned down the offer and tried to convince
Speaker 1: sus Amendez to help everyone that he could. After days
Speaker 1: of seclusion and prayer, sus Amendes, a devout Catholic, decided
Speaker 1: to act. He wrote in a letter at the time,
Speaker 1: I have it all in my hands now to save
Speaker 1: the many thousands of persons who have come from everywhere
Speaker 1: in Europe in the hope of finding sanctuary in Portugal.
Speaker 1: They are all human beings and their status in life.
Speaker 1: Their religion or color are altogether immaterial to me. With
Speaker 1: the help of Rabbi Krueger, his own family, and others,
Speaker 1: sus Amendes devised an assembly line like system to stamp
Speaker 1: and sign thousands of transit visas for anyone who applied.
Speaker 1: He traveled in person to a consulate in southern France
Speaker 1: and called to order other diplomats to do the same.
Speaker 1: His nephew, Caesar Mendez described the scene. When I arrived
Speaker 1: in Bordeaux and approached the Consulate of Portugal, I noticed
Speaker 1: immediately that a large crowd of refugees was heading that way.
Speaker 1: The closer I got to the consulate, the larger the crowd.
Speaker 1: Since May tenth of nineteen forty, until the occupation of
Speaker 1: Bordeaux by the Germans, the dining room, the drawing room,
Speaker 1: and the consul's offices were at the disposal of the refugees,
Speaker 1: scores of them, of both sexes, all ages, including old
Speaker 1: and sick people. They were coming and going, pregnant women
Speaker 1: who did not feel well, and people who had seen
Speaker 1: their relatives die on the highways, killed by airplane machine
Speaker 1: gun fire. They slept on chairs on the floor on
Speaker 1: the rugs. Tens of thousands of people were granted visas
Speaker 1: under Susan Mendez authority. Historians think it may be the
Speaker 1: largest rescue action carried out by a single person during
Speaker 1: the Holocaust. Among those saved was a seven year old
Speaker 1: boy suffering from appendicitis fleeing his home in war ravaged Belgium.
Speaker 1: His name at the time was Daniel Matusowitz now Daniel Matis.
Speaker 1: He's Olivia's father and a retired professor of physics at
Speaker 1: the University of Utah. In all, Susamandes rescued twelve members
Speaker 1: of Daniel's immediate family. A dozens more that sprung from
Speaker 1: that original twelve, including his daughter, are alive today because
Speaker 1: of his actions. And that's just one family represented among
Speaker 1: the thousands of people Susamandes saved. Matus said they were
Speaker 1: hoping for a miracle, and he was that miracle. In
Speaker 1: July of nineteen forty, Susamandes was recalled from Bordeaux to
Speaker 1: face trial for his insubordination. He said in court, it
Speaker 1: was indeed my aim to save all those people whose
Speaker 1: suffering was indescribable. Some had lost their spouses, others had
Speaker 1: no news of missing children. Others had seen their loved
Speaker 1: ones succumbed to the German bombings, which occurred every day
Speaker 1: and did not spare the terrified refugees. How many must
Speaker 1: have had to bury them before continuing on their frenzied flight.
Speaker 1: Susamndes argued that his actions were not only morally defensible,
Speaker 1: but the Portugal's constitution prohibited persecution based on religion. But
Speaker 1: in October of nineteen forty he was found guilty, relieved
Speaker 1: of his duties, and essentially blacklisted by Portugal's dictatorship for
Speaker 1: the rest of his life. He died in nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: four at the Franciscan Hospital for the Poor in Lisbon.
Speaker 1: Toward the end of his life, Susamandes was asked about
Speaker 1: that fateful June. He said, I could not have acted otherwise,
Speaker 1: and I therefore accept all that has befallen me with love.
Speaker 1: Time has been slow to acknowledge Susamndez's sacrifices, but recognition
Speaker 1: is coming. He's now often cited alongside Oscar Schindler, the
Speaker 1: German industrialist who saved more than a thousand Jewish people
Speaker 1: during World War II and was memorialized in a novel
Speaker 1: and the nineteen ninety three Stephen Spielberg film Schindler's List.
Speaker 1: Susamandez children spent decades trying to clear their father's name.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty six, his daughter Joanna Susamandez finally won
Speaker 1: the petition for her father to be named as a
Speaker 1: Righteous among the Nations, which is the World Holocaust Remembrance
Speaker 1: Center's honorific for non Jews who took great risks to
Speaker 1: save Jewish people during the Holocaust. In nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: at the urging of the US Congress, the post dictatorship
Speaker 1: Portuguese government officially apologized. Susamandes has since been honored with
Speaker 1: postage stamps, the Grand Cross of the Order of Christ,
Speaker 1: and streets and parks have been named for him. Daniel
Speaker 1: Matis never spoke to his daughter about his escape from Europe,
Speaker 1: but in twenty ten, while watching French TV from his
Speaker 1: home in Salt Lake City, he came upon a little
Speaker 1: known two thousand and eight film called Disobedience and immediately
Speaker 1: recognized the main character, Susan Mendes, as the man who
Speaker 1: had saved his life. Daniel contacted the filmmaker and spoke
Speaker 1: with his daughter Olivia, who tracked down members of Susan
Speaker 1: Mendes's family through Facebook. Together, along with the descendants of
Speaker 1: other family members that he saved, they founded the Susan
Speaker 1: Mendes Foundation. Matus said, I realized how much their family suffered,
Speaker 1: so my family and families like mine could live. The
Speaker 1: foundation has compiled a list of about three thousand, nine
Speaker 1: hundred Susan Mendes visa recipients and is constantly looking for more.
Speaker 1: The foundation also interviews survivors and gathers their histories, educates
Speaker 1: people about their stories, and in twenty twenty four opened
Speaker 1: the museum in the restored Susan Mendes home in Portugal.
Speaker 1: The sus Amandes Foundation represents one man's courageous and selfless actions,
Speaker 1: and the work of the foundation continues in that same
Speaker 1: vein today. Matus said, there is a noticeable and documented
Speaker 1: rise and hate crimes the last few years. We need
Speaker 1: to constantly remind people that violent words lead to violent actions,
Speaker 1: and that cannot be tolerated words of incitement. The rise
Speaker 1: of the far right is always bad news. That's the
Speaker 1: most urgent thing. Our foundation is not going to make
Speaker 1: a dent in any of that, but we can try.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article our stiatistic sus
Speaker 1: Amendes saved thousands from Holocaust but lost all on HowStuffWorks
Speaker 1: dot Com, written by John Donovan. Brain Stuff is production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts myheart Radio, visit
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