The Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa, claimed that "unfortunately, history has shown us that the situation Sousa Mendes was confronted with is still a reality" and therefore "it is important that we recall his values".

António Costa was speaking at the end of the ceremony assigning Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Portuguese Consul in Bordeaux during World War II, who saved countless lives, the honour of being placed in the National Pantheon. 

The ceremony took place in the National Pantheon in Lisbon and was attended by several members of Government. In attendance were also the President of the Portuguese Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and the President of Parliament, Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, who spoke during the session. 

The values practiced by Aristides de Sousa Mendes should be "remembered as a tribute due to the acts committed at the time, yet also as inspiration for what we need to keep doing to maintain those values alive", he noted.

"The persecutions didn’t end"

The Prime Minister said that assigning this honour to the former Portuguese diplomat is "very important nowadays", "because the persecutions didn’t end with World War II, nor did the need to ensure international protection end with the time".

António Costa said that we live new realities today, but deep down, "exactly the same things" are at stake: "protecting the dignity of human life, protecting lives, those who seek salvation".

Righteous

Aristides de Sousa Mendes was the Portuguese Consul in Bordeaux, France, during World War II. He saved millions of Jews and other refugees of the Nazi regime and the Nazi conquest of Europe by issuing visas and going against the orders issued by António de Oliveira Salazar’s Government, which forced him out of his diplomatic career.

Born on 19 July 1885, in the village of Cabanas de Viriato, in Carregal do Sal, Viseu, Aristides de Sousa Mendes died in April 1954 at the Franciscan Hospital for the Poor in Lisbon.

The Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem paid him tribute in 1966 by granting him the honorific Righteous Among the Nations.

The Portuguese Parliament decided unanimously in April 1988 the posthumous reinstatement of the former Consul in his diplomatic career, recognizing also the right to compensation to his direct heirs.

Aristides was also posthumously granted the level of Official of the Order of Liberty in 1986, and in 1995, the Grand Cross of the Order of Christ, both by President Mário Soares and, more recently in 2016, the Grand Cross of the Order of Liberty by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

The process of being placed in the National Pantheon was approved by Parliament in July 2020.