The Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes will be commemorated on the fiftieth anniversary of his death on 17 June by a series of commemorative masses in Portugal, New York, Rome, the Vatican and in other churches and synagogues throughout the world, and by the award of an international prize to Cardinal Raffaele Renato Martino and two medals to Father Bernard Jacques Riviere and to Joao Crisostomo. Aristides de Sousa Mendes is famous because, during the second world war, “following the dictates of his conscience, he began to issue visas that enabled some 30,000 people to be saved”, explain the organizers of the programme of commemorative events, the Raoul Wallenberg International Foundation and the Angelo Roncalli Committee, in collaboration with the Portuguese Embassy to the Holy See, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the St. Egidio Community. By his action de Sousa Mendes “had an incredible impact on what happened during the second world war: he inspired and facilitated the rescue operations mounted by many other diplomats right up to the end of the war”. The actions of this courageous diplomat, who said he wanted “to associate himself with God against man rather than with man against God”, will be commemorated with many religious services that are also intended to celebrate “all the diplomats of the second world war to whom we owe the saving of life”.
