The Wolf Family: Escape from Holocaust - I parte (STORIA) ~ di Stuart Kamenetsky & Ronit Zilbershats - TeclaXXI

STORIA

Stuart Kamenetsky

Ronit Zilbershats

 

The Wolf family: Escape from Holocaust

Part One 1/2 The Forbidden Visas: Sousa Mendes

“I would rather stand with God against Man than with Man against God”: The tale of one family saved by one righteous man

Aristides de Sousa Mendes 

By: Stuart Kamenetsky and Ronit Zilbershats

Introduction

According to the Talmud “Whoever saves a single life is considered by Scripture to have saved the whole world.” On May 10, 1940, a young Jewish couple living in Antwerp, Sarah and Nathan Wolf and their nine-month-old daughter, Blumi, faced a harsh reality that would shape the rest of their lives. Nazi Germany invaded Belgium as part of a rapid surprise offensive during World War II, which also targeted the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France. While the "Final Solution" – the Nazi plan for the systematic, state-sponsored annihilation of European Jews – did not begin until 1941, Jews were in fact viciously murdered by the occupying Nazis and their local accomplices. If not for the heroic efforts of one righteous gentile, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a Portuguese diplomat who issued unauthorized visas allowing them to escape, their fate might have been the same as that of at least 65% (over 9,000) of Antwerp’s 13,779 registered Jews who were ultimately deported to concentration camps and murdered among the total of six million European Jews.  

Sarah and Nathan Wolf at their engagement (Antwerp, 1937)

           While the young Wolf family was tragically separated from their extended family for many years to come, they were among the fortunate Sousa Mendes visa recipients who were able to escape to Portugal and later to New York, USA, where they built a new life. They had two more daughters, Helen and Debby, ten grandchildren (as well as three step grandchildren) and several dozen great-grandchildren, many of whom are now parents themselves. The authors of this paper are two of the Wolf couple’s grandchildren. We are a family of hardworking and accomplished individuals - doctors, lawyers, professors, psychologists, rabbis, mental health workers, teachers, venture capitalists, high tech personnel and more.

           The current rise in antisemitism, which has not been seen to this degree since the rise of Nazi Germany in 1933, as well as broader worldwide conflict and social unrest, compel us during these uncertain times to remember, reflect, and learn from the actions of an incredible individual, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who followed his faith and acted selflessly towards other human beings in grave need. He did this for the sake of humanity, despite the heavy price that he ultimately paid. The following story recounts Sousa Mendes’ heroic decisions and actions, personalizing it with the tale of the very fortunate Wolf family who might never have survived otherwise.

The Sousa Mendes Story

Following the Nazi invasion of France and neighboring countries in June 1940, millions of refugees, including tens of thousands of Jews, fled from Nazi occupied Northern France to the south, hoping to cross the border into Spain before the Nazis arrived. The New York Times, for example, reported that in mid-June 1940 there were 6-10 million refugees on the roads of France, the largest migration in human history. That migration is remembered in France as “l’exode”’ as a kind of parallel to the Biblical exodus from Egypt. These refugees hoped to reach Portugal – the gateway west to the Americas which promised safety. In Portugal, the dictator, António de Oliveira Salazar, made it difficult for stateless people to get visas to Portugal during WWII due to strict neutrality policies. Specifically, "Circular 14" issued on November 11, 1939, instructed diplomats to deny visas to stateless individuals, refugees from occupied countries and Jews, fearing they would stay permanently or "destabilize" the regime. As such, visas to Portugal were to be issued only with direct approval from the government in Lisbon and only after careful examination of each application. Most refugees wanted to use Portugal only as a temporary safe haven. Thousands of Jewish and other refugees, many of whom were either stateless or were Polish and other nationals who had escaped pogroms in Eastern Europe, concentrated in Bordeaux in the south of France in an attempt to obtain the desired visa allowing them to leave France and continue their escape through Spain, to Portugal and beyond.

           Indeed, the Wolf family’s parents had escaped pogroms in Eastern Europe as did countless other Jewish families in the late 1800s and early 20^th century. Such families headed to Western Europe and the Americas with hopes for a better future. A notable example is provided in the famous Broadway 1964 play and later 1971 film Fiddler on the Roof, which tells the story of Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman in early 20th-century Russia who is faced with the challenge of marrying off his five daughters amidst the growing tension in his shtetl (Jewish village) ultimately heading west with the few items he could carry with him, amidst uncertainty as to when or if they will ever reunite with their loved ones.

           While countries such as Belgium took in Jewish refugees such as the Wolfs, they stamped their identification cards with large letters indicating that they were foreigners. While it was theoretically possible for Eastern European Jews to obtain Belgian citizenship, it was a long and difficult process. The vast majority of Jewish refugees from both major waves of migration (the 1880s and the interwar period of the 1930s) remained foreign nationals or stateless. The Wolfs, like many other Jews, were Polish, as the following ID cards show.

Sarah Wolf’s Belgian ID card indicating her foreign Polish status

 

Nathan Wolf’s Belgian ID card indicating his foreign Polish status

        At the Portuguese consulate in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a devout Catholic and father of 12 living children (two others had died, and one was not yet born, for a total of fifteen), had been serving as Consul General since 1938. He had previously served as Consul General in Antwerp, where he was also the Dean of the Consular Corps. In Bordeaux, a friendship developed between him and the self-appointed representative of the Jewish refugees, Rabbi Chaim Kruger. As the head of a large family, Sousa Mendes was sympathetic to the plight of the rabbi, who was trying to escape Nazi-occupied Europe with his own large family consisting of himself, his wife and their five children, ages 6-14. Consul Mendes offered to save him and his family by granting them a visa to Portugal, contrary to the Circular 14 edict. The rabbi heroically and courageously refused the offer, taking the moral position that unless Sousa Mendes would also take care of the many thousands of other Jewish refugees (“all of my brothers and sisters,” in the rabbi’s words) who were held up in Bordeaux and faced certain death should they not escape the advancing Nazi army – they wouldn’t go. Sousa Mendes sent dozens of telegrams to Lisbon with visa requests, but many went unanswered or were simply denied. In light of the developing humanitarian disaster, Sousa Mendes took matters into his own hands.

        While the exact date is hard to pinpoint, on a day now remembered as his “Day of Conscience,” Sousa Mendes began to act contrary to the instructions from Lisbon and issued visas to anyone who wanted them. He set up a makeshift office inside the consulate and, with the help of two of his sons and several refugees, began to issue visas to enter Portugal. On the night of June 19, 1940, the Nazi Luftwaffe bombed Bordeaux to pressure the fleeing French government to surrender. Bordeaux served at the time as the provisional French capital and some 300,000 refugees were sheltering there at the time. The bombing resulted in killing approximately 65 to 150 people and wounding a further 160 to 300, many of whom were refugees, spreading panic and fear. Hence, on June 20, 1940, many refugees fled to the city of Bayonne, which was closer to the Spanish border. Sousa Mendes left Bordeaux and advanced with the refugees to Bayonne, where he continued to issue visas. On June 22, 1940, a telegram was sent to Sousa Mendes from Salazar ordering him to stop issuing visas. He refused the order and further followed the refugees to the town of Hendaye on the border of Spain, where he continued to issue visas in makeshift conditions. He even accompanied some of the refugees on their way to the border crossing, in order to ensure that the visas he issued would be respected. Sousa Mendes also ordered the Portuguese vice-consul of Toulouse to issue visas in that city, equally besieged by refugees. On June 23, the Portuguese ambassador in Spain, Pedro Teotónio Pereira, sent a telegram to the Lisbon authorities describing Sousa Mendes as being "out of his mind." Salazar recalled Sousa Mendes to Portugal, an order he received upon returning to Bordeaux on June 26. Sousa Mendes complied slowly, arriving in Portugal on July 8.

        Despite direct orders, and in defiance of “Circular 14,” in May and June of 1940, Sousa Mendes distributed thousands of visas to Portugal, the majority of which were to Jewish refugees, the young Wolf family among them. Those who received a visa crossed the French-Spanish border at Hendaye-Irun. At that time, Spain was a chaotic place due to the civil war, and the atmosphere was tense and unsafe. It was also a physical wasteland compared by many refugees to Dante’s Inferno. The refugees hurried across Spain without stopping until they reached Portugal. They were, in fact, forbidden by Spanish law from remaining in Spain longer than 3 days, and as such were limited to a prescribed route.

        When they arrived in Portugal, the refugees began to "breathe." Many recalled an atmosphere of peace and meeting kind people all around. Vilar Formoso, the border village now known as the "Frontier of Peace" and the site of a museum memorializing this history, provided initial safety, food, and shelter for those crossing the border. The refugees who made it into Portugal stayed anywhere between a few weeks to a year and a half before sailing off mainly to the Americas. They were scattered throughout the country, including the cities of Lisbon and Porto, the fishing village of Figueira da Foz, the university town of Coimbra and elsewhere. The refugees were assigned by the PVDE, the Portuguese Secret Police, to these “fixed” or “forced” residences where they were required to live and were closely watched. Their passports were confiscated for the duration of their stay in Portugal and were only returned upon their departure. Sometimes families were required to move several times. For example, the Wolf family was sent first to Curia, then to Porto. The Portuguese authorities did not want the refugees to get too comfortable and attempt to remain in Portugal.

        Sousa Mendes faced discipline in Lisbon for what he did. He was tried and accused of insubordination. As punishment, he was dismissed from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was deprived of his pension. He was also blacklisted and unable to find employment. His cherished family home, Casa do Passal, which was an elegant manor in Cabanas de Viriato, was repossessed by the bank, sold to creditors and fell into total ruin. His large family lived in humiliation and abject poverty to the point that they were dependent on meals at the soup kitchen run by COMASSIS, the Jewish refugee aid organization funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the “Joint”). The first time the Sousa Mendes family ate there, they explained that “we too are refugees.”

        On April 3, 1954, Aristides de Sousa Mendes died, disgraced and penniless. His children fought for years to clear his name. Despite the suffering caused to the entire family, none of them ever expressed regret for his actions. One of his great-grandchildren, Jason Abranches, even proudly wears a tattoo with his great-grandfather's quote: "I would rather stand with God against man than with man against God." This statement is consistent with another statement he made to Rabbi Kruger: "If thousands of Jews can suffer because of one Christian (i.e., Adolf Hitler), then surely one Christian is allowed to suffer for so many Jews." 

>> continua 

la seconda parte sarà pubblicata da TeclaXXI il 1° ottobre 2026 

BIONOTA Stuart Kamenetsky, Ph.D is a Professor in the Teaching Stream at the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at the University of Toronto, Canada. His primary area of scholarship and teaching is disability and inclusion. He has contributed to the development of experiential learning courses and has taught internationally in Siena, Italy, Oxford, UK and Kyoto, Japan.

BIONOTA Ronit Zilbershats, Ph.D is an independent scholar in Israeli Studies and Archaeology. She is also an educator, having taught at both high school and university. She currently manages a digital archive as well as several community projects for historical preservation in Israel.

Acknowledgment: Many thanks to Olivia Mattis, Ph.D. President of the Sousa Mendes Foundation for her valuable historical contributions and for Micaela Ziv for her editorial comments.