Aristides de Sousa Mendes
Aristides de Sousa Mendes was a courageous Portuguese diplomat who served as Consul-General in Bordeaux during the fall of France in 1940. Defying explicit prohibitions from Portugal's Salazar regime, he issued thousands of transit visas to refugees fleeing Nazi aggression, including desperate Jewish families. Over a pivotal few weeks, Mendes worked tirelessly to sign official documentation, allowing an estimated 30,000 refugees to escape into neutral territory. For his insubordination, he was stripped of his diplomatic status and ruined financially, but his selfless actions are remembered as one of the largest rescue efforts by a single individual during World War II.
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