Events

Réfugiés au Portugal et l´action d´Aristides de Sousa Mendes

at 18 KM
University of Luxembourg Follow

Conference
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Politics
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Women

wed. 19 Feb.

19h00-20h30

As part of the exhibition "Aristides de Sousa Mendes: A Portuguese consul between human conscience and reason of state" at the National Archives, from November 28 to February 22, 2020, the Portuguese Readers of the Camões Institute at the University of Luxembourg - within the Institute of Romanes Studies, Media and Arts, the Department of Human Sciences, the Faculty of Human Sciences, Educational Sciences and Social Sciences - organizes the conference "Refugees at Portugal and the action of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, consul in Bordeaux in 1940 ".
After the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 by Germany, the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued on November 11, 1939, Circular No. 14, according to which only career diplomats could now grant entry visas in Portugal, and only those who already had a consular visa for a country of final destination and tickets for a trip by boat or plane could receive them.
It was in this circular n. 14 that the Portuguese consul in Bordeaux decided to disobey by giving the Portuguese visa to all those who asked for it, without taking into account, as He will say, their religion, their fortune or their race. He had thus granted thousands of Portuguese visas, between June 17 and July 8, 1940, when He returned to Portugal, to undergo a disciplinary trial. The visas granted by Aristides Sousa Mendes explain the large number of refugees who entered Portugal in 1940.