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  4. Portugal, the Consuls, and the Jewish Refugees, 1938-1941

Portugal, the Consuls, and the Jewish Refugees, 1938-1941

Avraham Milgram

  1. Fernando Rosas, O Estado Novo nos Anos Trinta 1928-1938 (Lisboa: Estampa, 1996); idem., Portugal Entre a Paz e a Guerra 1939-1945 (Lisboa: Estampa, 1995); idem., ed., O Estado Novo (1926-1974) (Lisboa: Vega, 1991), volume 7 of História de Portugal, series editor José Mattoso; António Telo, Portugal na Segunda Guerra (1941-1945); Portugal e o Estado Novo (1930-1960), vol. XII, Coordenação de Fernando Rosas (Lisboa: Presença, 1990).
  2. Irene F. Pimentel, “Refugiados entre portugueses (1933-1945), Vé rtice no. 69 (November/ December 1995), pp. 102-111; “Salazar impediu os refugiados de ‘contagiarem’ Portugal” Publico, Saturday, March 18, 1995; See also Ferreira Fernandes, Passagem para a Vida, report in Publico, Sunday, March 26, 1995.
  3. In relation to Spain, see the definitive study of Haim Avni, SPAIN, the Jews, and Franco (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1982).
  4. Yehuda Bauer, American Jewry and the Holocaust (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1982), pp. 35-55, 197-216.
  5. Patrick von Zur Mühlen, Fluchtweg Spanien-Portugal ― Die Deutsche Emigration und der Exodus aus Europa 1933-1945 (Bonn: Dietz, 1992).
  6. Nathan Eck, “ The Rescue of Jews With the Aid of Passports and Citizenship Papers of Latin American States, Yad Vashem Studies, I (Jerusalem, 1957), pp. 125-152; Artur Prinz, “The Role of the Gestapo in Obstructing and Promoting Jewish Emigration”, Yad Vashem Studies, II (Jerusalem, 1958), pp. 205-218.
  7. David S. Wyman, Paper Walls (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1968), pp. 155-168; Shlomo Shafir, “American Diplomats in Berlin (1933-1939) and Their Attitude to the Nazi Persecution of the Jews,” Yad Vashem Studies, IX (Jerusalem, 1973), pp. 71-105; idem., “George S. Messersmith: Anti-Nazi Diplomat’s View of the German-Jewish Crisis,” Jewish Social Studies, XXXV, 1973, pp. 32-41.
  8. Leonardo Senkman, Argentina, la Segunda Guerra Mundial y los Refugiados Indeseables 1933-1945 (Buenos Aires: Grupo Editor Latinoamericano, 1991), pp. 41-58, 88-99, 275-279; Maria Luiz Tucci Carneiro, O Antisemitismo na Era Vargas (São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1988), pp. 155-348; Avraham Milgram, “The Jews of Europe from the Perspective of the Brazilian Foreign Service, 1933-1941,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies vol. 9, no. 1 (Spring 1995), pp. 94-120; Jeffrey Lesser, Welcoming the Undesirables (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995), pp.118-169; Daniel Feierstein and Miguel Galante, “Argentina and the Holocaust: The Conceptions and Policies of Argentine Diplomacy, 1933-1945”; Moshe Nes-El, “Dos memorias de embajadores latinoamericanos en Europa durante la segunda guerra mundial," Estudios Sobre el Judaismo Latinoamericano (Jerusalem, 1987), pp. 91-102.
  9. António Louça and Eva Ban, “Budapeste, 1944 ― dois diplomatas portugueses face ao Holocausto,” História, ano XVIII (nova série), no.15 (December 1995), pp. 24-33; see also Feierstein and Galante, “Argentina and the Holocaust.”
  10. João Mendes and Clara Viana, “Budapeste, 1944: a embaixada que salvou 1000 judeus,” Publico, March 27, 1944; Mena Mendonça, “A verdade sobre a acção diplomatica de Portugal na protecção dos judeus na Hungria durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial através dos Ministro Plenipotenciario Carlos de Sampayo Garrido e Encarregado de Negócios Carlos Branquinho,” O Dia, July 3, 1944.
  11. Informação ― Resumo ― Parecer, “A Conferencia de Evian,” AMNE (Arquivo do Ministerio dos Negócios Estrangeiros) 2o. P. P. A-47, M-58.
  12. On September 8, 1938, Portugal was invited by the British to participate in the Inter-Governmental Committee created by the Evian Conference. The invitation was endorsed by the American embassy in Lisbon, AMNE, ibid., p. 3.
  13. There are several estimates of the number of Jewish refugees who passed through Portugal: Yehuda Bauer estimated approximately 40,000 for the period 1940-1941; American Jewry and the Holocaust, p. 48. Haim Avni, based on reports of the HICEM from the fall of France till the end of December 1942, points to 10,500 Jews who sailed from Lisbon. This account does not include those who sailed on their own; Avni, Spain, the Jews, and Franco, pp. 90-93; p. 236 note 57. This is the most precise account. The American Jewish Year Book, vol. 46, 1944, mentions that approximately 100,000 refugees, most of them Jews, passed through Portugal, which contradicts its own sources, The American Jewish Year Book, 42 (1941), where Captain Agostinho of the PVDE (see below) stated that there were 15,000 refugees in August 1940.
  14. Letter from the consul in Vienna, João de Lucena to the MNE on June 15, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. P. A-43, M-81.
  15. This was the information which hundreds of Jews received at the Portuguese consulate in Vienna. João de Lucena to the MNE on August 24, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-38.
  16. João de Lucena to the MNE on June 22, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-38.
  17. Telegram from the Berlin embassy to the MNE, September 7, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-38.
  18. Telegram of the MNE to the Berlin embassy, September 30, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-38.
  19. Letter from Antonio de Seves, head of the legation in Brussels to the MNE, August 27, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-38.
  20. Adolfo Benarus, one of the leaders of the Jewish community of Lisbon, was president of the Zionist Federation, founder and director of the Jewish school, wrote books on Jewish and Zionist issues and was in touch with Jewish leaders, such as Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Goldman. See farewell letter dated April 22, 1941, of Dr. Augusto d’Esaguy, who succeeded Adolfo Benarus in the presidency of COMASSIS, Archive of the Jewish Community of Lisbon. Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, (CAHJP) Po/Li/A-II/12a, 2.
  21. Rosas, ed., O Estado Novo (1926-1974), pp. 295-299.
  22. Fernando Rosas, O Salazarismo e a Aliança Luso-Britânica (Lisbon: Ed. Fragmentos, 1988), pp. 13-49-107-120.
  23. Cesar Oliveira, “A Sobrevivência das Ditaduras e a Neutralidade Peninsular na Segunda Guerra Mundial” in O Estado Novo das Origens ao Fim da Autarcia 1926-1959 (Lisboa: ed. Fragmentos, 1987), pp. 357-366; see also “Oliveira Salazar e a Política Externa Portuguesa: 1932-1968” in Salazar e o Salazarismo (Lisboa: Publicações Dom Quixote, 1989), pp. 71-83.
  24. Studies about the PVDE are few, and their absence is more evident in matters referring to the admission and control of foreigners. From 1933, the PVDE became the main agent of social and political control of the regime, infiltrating itself into innumerable areas of national life, trying to detect potential enemies of the regime, especially communists and liberals. Tom Galagher, “Controlled Repression in Salazar’s Portugal,” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 14 (1979), pp. 385-402. According to Douglas L. Wheeler, the PVDE and, after 1945, the PIDE was a more defensive than aggressive instrument; he points out that the neutralization or destruction of the policy of the opposition was only one among several police functions which it set out to fulfill. Douglas L. Wheeler, “In the Service of Order: The Portuguese Political Police and the British, German and Spanish Intelligence, 1932-1945,” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 18 (1983), p. 2.
  25. Mühlen, Fluchtweg Spanien-Portugal, p. 126.
  26. Maria da Conceição Ribeiro, A Polícia Política no Estado Novo 1936-1945 (Lisboa: Editorial Estampa, 1995), pp. 94-95.
  27. Wheeler, “In the Service of Order,” p. 11.
  28. Maria da Conceição Ribeiro quotes British sources in which Paulo Cumano is described as a Germanophile favoring Nazi racial ideas. See Ribeiro, A Polícia Política, p. 119.
  29. Letter from the Director of the PVDE to the Secretary-General of the MNE, Lisbon, October 18, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-73.
  30. Telegram from Ambassador Veiga Simões, Berlin, September 27, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-38; Letter from General Consul M. de Castro, London, September 20, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-38a; Letter from Vice-Consul Joaquim de Souza Cordeiro in Amsterdam, October 4, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. A- 43, M-38a; Letter from Consul Jose Augusto Magalhães in Marseilles, October 21, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-38a; Letter from Consul Vasco da Gama Santos in Budapest, October 16, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-38. 
  31. Letter from the Secretary-General of the Ministry of the Interior, Mario Caes Esteves, to the MNE on September 30, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-38.
  32. This is the content of the letter signed by the Secretary-General of the PVDE, Jose Catela, to the Secretary-General of the MNE on October 27, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-38.
  33. Ansgar Schäfer, “Obstáculos no caminho para a liberdade,” in Aspectos e Tendências de Estudos Germanísticos em Portugal, Lisboa, December 1992, pp. 85-94.
  34. Mühlen, Fluchtweg Spanien-Portugal, p. 129. Had the book not been so clearly apologetic, presenting Portugal as a country welcoming refugees, we would have had no reason to distrust the categorical tone of this statement.
  35. Avni, SPAIN, the Jews, and Franco, pp. 72-79.
  36. António Louçã, “Portugal, Double Game, Between the Nazis and the Allies,” in Avi Becker, ed., Challenging European History: The Plunder of Jewish Property During the Holocaust (London: Macmillan, forthcoming).
  37. Several studies were published in the last ten years about Brazil and the issue of the Jewish refugees during the 1930s and 1940s. Without taking into account the historiographic differences, these studies reflect the negative and deeply antisemitic attitude of the majority of the consuls serving in Europe. Maria Luiza Tucci Carneiro, O Anti-Semitismo na Era Vargas (São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1988), pp.155-247; Avraham Milgram, “The Jews of Europe from the Perspective of the Brazilian Foreign Service, and Os Judeus do Vaticano,” ( Rio de Janeiro: Imago, 1994), pp. 107-124. Lesser, Welcoming the Undesirables.
  38. Senkman, Argentina, la Segunda Guerra Mundial, pp. 41-58.
  39. Feierstein and Galante, “Argentina and the Holocaust.”
  40. Wyman, Paper Walls, pp. 155-168.
  41. Alberto da Veiga Simões was born on December 16, 1888, in Arganil. From an early age he showed his literary skills, writing short stories and essays on political issues for local newspapers. He studied law at the University of Coimbra, receiving his diploma in 1910. Till he entered the consular corps in 1915, Alberto da Veiga Simões practiced law and was also involved in the politics of Arganil, aspiring to become a national figure. His republican leanings led him to become a journalist, writing for the weekly of the Centro Republicano Evolucionista [Evolutionary Republican Center] in his city, having been invited by Antonio José de Almeida, president of the Central Committee of the Evolutionary Party, to become the political editor of its organ: República. See Neves, ed., Veiga Simões, Vida e Obra (Arganil: Publication of the City Council, 1988). This study, published in his memory and therefore apologetic, is clearly anti-authoritarian. "Today we can no longer doubt: the memory of Veiga Simões has not been respected with the attention it deserves, for reasons whose roots are clearly political. Who knows if unconsciously, but the truth is that the political struggles in which he became involved in the early years of the Republic increased later, during the long years of authoritarianism which followed 1926, as if it were a crime to be a democrat." p. 13.
  42. Cesar Mendes, twin brother of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, became an uncompromising enemy of Veiga Simões in the mid-1920s, and all the more so when he was nominated minister of the MNE by Salazar. Mendes pursued Veiga Simões so as to remove him from the ministry due to his republican past. See Rui Afonso, Injustiça. O Caso Souza Mendes (Lisboa: Editorial Caminho, 1990), pp. 193-197; Um Bom Homem. Aristides Sousa Mendes o “Wallenberg Português,” (Lisboa: Editorial Caminho, 1995), p. 18.
  43. Veiga Simões to Salazar, Berlin, March 29, 1937, AMNE 3o. P. A-11, M- 34.
  44. Ibid.
  45. Entry to Portugal to be conferred to holders of German passports marked with a J, “only if: a) they have relatives who are already resident in Portugal, and able to pay for their upkeep (especially in the case of old people, women and minors) ; b) gave sufficient guarantees that they possessed funds and could continue their journey to another country, the Portuguese territory serving only as transit or a short stay, for a period of time to be decided in each individual case by the proper authorities in Lisbon, a period which could be prolonged till they settled down if the authorities were to decide that this was convenient and the interested party wished it; c) the people involved are on a high scientific or technical level, of recognized merit, a case which is probably very rare; d) the people involved gave all the guarantees of social respectability, and of not being able to undertake activities which competing with local ones would harm Portugal’s economy or certain of its classes”; Veiga Simões to Salazar, Berlin, March 29, 1937, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-38.
  46. Milgram, Os Judeus do Vaticano, pp. 115-116.
  47. “The Police informs consulate in Berlin is granting visas, passports, German Jews without prior consultation Portuguese police. Chancellor of the Consulate also gives declarations to those interested that it has no objections to their coming to Portugal. I beg Your Excellency to order the immediate stop of these procedures. signed Minister.” Telegram of Salazar to Veiga Simões, December 21, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-38.
  48. Veiga Simões to Salazar, Berlin January 14, 1939, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M- 38-A.
  49. Veiga Simões to Salazar, Berlin December 31, 1938, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-38.
  50. Ibid. The PVDE authorized the arrival of these people as tourists during a period of thirty days, that is, within the limits established by the decree of October 10, 1938, and also as a show of authority. Letter of the PVDE to the General Director of Political Affairs and Internal Administration of the MNE, Lisbon, March 3, 1939, AMNE 20. P. A-43, M-38-A.
  51. Three days later, on January 17, 1939, he again warned the MNE about visas authorized by the PVDE to Jews lacking funds and proof of their being able to go on to other countries. Telegram of January 17, 1939, AMNE, 2o. P. A-43, M-38.
  52. Confidential letter of Paulo Cumano to the Secretary-General of the MNE, Lisbon, April 11, 1939, AMNE 2o. P. A-43, M-38-A. The consul addressed the Civil Governor of Ponta Delgada asking for authorization for twenty-eight Jewish families to land.
  53. Veiga Simões to the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Salazar), Berlin, May 4, 1939, AMNE, 2o. P. A-43, M-38-A.
  54. Veiga Simões to Salazar, Berlin, April 8, 1939. AMNE, 2o. P. A-43, M-38-A.
  55. Unsigned information to Salazar, dated May 8, 1941, A.N.T.T. Oliveira Salazar Archive AOS/CO/IN-8 B.
  56. Neves, ed., Veiga Simões, Vida e Obra, p. 8.
  57. The road to his rehabilitation in Portugal started in Jerusalem, which distinguished him in 1967, with the noble title of “Righteous Among the Nations” conferred by Yad Vashem.
  58. The new instructions of the MNE, hindering entry to foreigners distrusted by Salazar’s regime, appear in circular no. 14 of November 11, 1939. These instructions forbid fourth-class consuls to grant passports or consular visas without first consulting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Without first consulting the Minister of Foreign Affairs, consuls will not be able to grant consular visas to: foreigners of indefinite, or contested nationality or one under litigation, to displaced persons, to holders of Nansen passports and to Russians; to foreigners whose reasons for coming to Portugal the consul does not consider satisfactory, and furthermore, those on whose passports a declaration or some sign states that they will not be able to return to their country of origin; consuls should try to find out from all foreigners whether they have means of subsistence; to Jews expelled from the countries of their nationality or from those they come from; to those, who invoking their sailing from a Portuguese port, do not have in their passports a visa valid for the country of their destination, a ticket by sea or air, or one which the respective companies guarantee. The consuls will, however, be very careful not to hinder the arrival in Lisbon of passengers going on to other countries and especially those travelling on trans-Atlantic air routes or to the Far East. In the Minister’s name (a) Luiz F. Sampayo. AMNE, RC 779.
  59. This is the final text of the reprimanding letter, which the Secretary-General of the MNE Luiz Sampayo sent to Sousa Mendes on April 24, 1940, AMNE RC M 779. See also the chapter “Desobediência” by Rui Afonso, Um Homem Bom, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, o “Wallenberg português.”
  60. Aide-mémoire of the British Embassy in Lisbon, April 24, 1940, AMNE RC M 779.
  61. Testimony of Cesar Mendes. Dossier Aristides Sousa Mendes, Yad Vashem Archives (YVA), M 31/264.
  62. I would like to thank Dr. Mordechai Paldiel, director of the department of the “Righteous Among the Nations” at Yad Vashem, for his courtesy in making the visa list of the Bordeaux consulate available to me.
  63. Harry Ezratty, “The Portuguese Consul and the 10,000 Jews,” Jewish Life, Sept.-Oct. 1964, pp. 17-19.
  64. Ezratty based his calculations on information given by Ilja Dijour, representative of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) in Lisbon, according to which 10,000 Jews entered Portugal during the war.
  65. Lists of visas of the Portuguese consulate in Bordeaux.
  66. Haim Avni’s interview of the Michaeli family on April 3,1962, Oral History Division, Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Project no. 1, interview 5.
  67. Report of the HIAS-ICA Activities in Lisbon. July 1, 1940―December 18, 1941, HIAS-HICEM Archives, series I ― reel 30.
  68. Ibid.
  69. Report on the Activity of the HIAS-ICA Emigration Association for 1940, HIAS-HICEM Archives, series I ― reel 30.
  70. Testimony of Rabbi Haim Kruguer, 1966. Dossier Aristides de Sousa Mendes, YVA, M31/264. Rabbi Kruguer received the visa on June 15, 1940, visa no. 1605, list of visas of the Bordeaux consulate.
  71. Report of the Activities of the HICEM in 1940 from January 1 to September 30, 1940, HIAS-HICEM Archives, series I-reel 30. The liberation of these two groups was mentioned by Dr. Augusto d’Esaguy in his farewell letter, Archive of the Jewish Community of Lisbon, CAHJP, Jerusalem, Po/Li/A-II/12a, 2. The president of the Consistoire Israélite of Luxembourg, Albert Nussbaum, who succeeded in entering Portugal with one of these groups, put pressure through several channels to admit Luxembourg families. One of them, through the Belgian legation in Lisbon, appealed, at his request, to Salazar to allow the admission of the Lieblich family who were in Vilar Formoso; Letter of “Legation de Belgique” to Salazar, Lisbon, December 30, 1940, AMNE 2o. P. A-44, M-152.
  72. See report of V.Bodson, Minister of Justice of Luxembourg to A.W.G. Randall, March 2, 1942, Public Record Office (London), FO 371/32655. The train traveled from the Portuguese border to Bayonne on November 19, 1940. On November 26, the train was sent by the SS to unoccupied France, where they were refused admission, and forced to return again to Bayonne. As the German military authorities in Bayonne insisted that they should be moved within the shortest delay, the SS forced these Jews to infiltrate Spain in small groups. See Christopher Browning, The Final Solution and the German Foreign Office (N.Y.: Holmes & Meier, 1978), pp.45-46; Bauer, American Jewry, pp. 53-55.
  73. This thesis, which is a main statement in his first book, Injustiça, is marginalized in his second book, Um Homem Bom.
  74. Aide-mémoire of the British Embassy in Lisbon on June 20, 1940, AMNE RC M 779. In 1923, while posted in San Francisco, Sousa Mendes clashed with the local Portuguese community over a contribution to a charity institution to which the American Portuguese refused. The affair, which was not reported to the MNE, reached the press in the form of insults and the MNE, which considered it a serious error. Afonso Rui, Injustiça, pp. 22-26. This was therefore not the first time that Sousa Mendes had struggled for a charitable cause. On this occasion he did so in extremely delicate circumstances.
  75. To the contrary of what is usually held, apart from the fact that Sousa Mendes and Raoul Wallenberg entered the diplomatic service and saved Jews during World War II, there is little in common between these figures. For the differences, see Douglas Wheeler, “And Who Is My Neighbor? A World War II Hero or Conscience for Portugal?” Luso-Brazilian Review XXVI, 1,1989 p. 120. The sub-title of the biography written by Rui Afonso reflects this tendency: Um Homem Bom Aristides de Sousa Mendes. O “Wallenberg português,” and several articles published in newspapers also look for this affinity, so as to raise up the figure and the deeds of Sousa Mendes. “‘Portuguese Wallenberg’ honored at last” Toronto Star, April 19, 1987; “Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese Wallenberg: The Crime of Saving Jews” O Jornal 52, March 30, 1988, pp. 26-31; Jose Antunes, “Lisboa: Porto de Êxodo; Salazar demitiu Wallenberg português,” Gente, Lisboa, October 21- 27, 1987.
  76. Antonio Melo, "Homem Bom," Público, December 8, 1966, p. 27.
  77. Expresso, no. 1238, July 20, 1966.
  78. “On December 17, 1940, we received for the first time permission for about 200 people who came to Portugal in transit. This began the second period of six months. People were able to come to Portugal at that time having their destination visa and transit visa in perfect order. This was a great success for us and during this period from January to July 1941, we sent over 2856 people of whom 1282 were sent directly from Portugal and the remaining 1574 from France and other European countries.” Report of the HIAS-ICA Activities in Lisbon, July 1, 1940 ― December 18, 1941, HIAS-HICEM Archives, series I ― reel 30.
  79. Vaz da Cunha, General Director of Economic and Consular Affairs of the MNE to the director of the PVDE, Lisbon May 11, 1940, AMNE, 2o. P. P. A- 44, M-152. Rumania, which, from the end of the 1930s, publicized its intention of diminishing its Jewish population, was enlarged after World War I with the territories annexed from Transylvania and Bessarabia, paradoxically caused opposite results because this antisemitism was assimilated by the consular representations in Bucarest. One of the clearest examples is the document sent by the first secretary of the Brazilian legation, Labianno Salgado dos Santos to Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1938. See Maria Luiza Tucci Carneiro, O Anti-Semitismo na Era Vargas, São Paulo, Brasiliense, 1988, pp. 314-417.
  80. Count Giuseppe Agneore Magno was the scion of a Neapolitan aristocratic family. He served as head of the Italian Immigration Service in Buenos Aires in the first decades of the century and was recommended as honorary consul of Portugal in Milan,by his friend, Augusto de Castro, at the time Portugal’s ambassador in Rome. He was appointed in 1934. Magno, the Lusophile, knew the Portuguese language well and had even translated Portuguese literature into Italian, including works of Augusto de Castro. Rui Afonso, “Count Giuseppe Agenore Magno,” Portuguese Studies Review, vol. V, no.1, Spring-Summer 1966, pp. 12-22.
  81. Letter of the PVDE to Vaz da Cunha, AMNE, 2o. P. P. A-44, M-152.
  82. Section of the Consular Administration, January 30, 1941, AMNE, RPA 103. The discharge decree was signed by the Secretary of the Presidency of the Republic, Dossier G. A. Magno no. 3459.
  83. Rui Afonso explains this sui generis phenomenon as the result of the appeals to Salazar by Alfredo Casanova, consul in Genova and superior to Agenore Magno, and by the eventual intervention of Augusto de Castro. In regard to Augusto de Castro, there are no documents proving that he helped Magno.
  84. Alfredo Casanova to Oliveira Salazar, Genoa, June 19, 1941, G.A. Magno file, YVA, M31/3459.
  85. Afonso Rui, Injustiça, p. 18.
  86. Letter from the PVDE to the General Director of the Economical and Consular Affairs of the MNE, Lisbon, February 21, 1941, AMNE, 2o. P. P. A- 44, M-152. The visas of Agenore Magno were granted before his discharge. It was probably Sam Levy, a Jew of Greek origin and registered at the Milan consulate in 1936, who suggested asking the honorary consul of Panama, Comendador Segre, of Jewish lineage, to grant entry visas. This enabled Magno to grant transit visas to Jewish refugees; G.A. Magno file, YVA, M31/3459. The visas to Haiti were probably obtained by bribery; see Bauer, pp. 45-46.
  87. Letter of Elias Baruel, Vice-President of the Section of Assistance to Refugees of the Jewish Community in Lisbon to the director of the PVDE, Lisbon May 12, 1942, Archive of the Jewish Community of Lisbon. Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, Po/Li/A-II/12 a, 5.The visas were granted by Vice-Consul Gabriel Guizol, who headed the consulate till his death in December 1941, or by his brother Roland Guizol who substituted him.
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