Portugal and the Holocaust
Portugal was officially neutral during World War II and the period of the Holocaust in German-occupied Europe. The country had been ruled by an authoritarian political regime led by António de Oliveira Salazar but had not been significantly influenced by racial antisemitism and was considered more sympathetic to the Allies than was neighbouring Francoist Spain.
German expansion led to the passage of substantial numbers of refugees, including some Jews, through Portugal in 1939 and 1940 for the first time. Fearful of the economic and political consequences, the Salazar regime tightened the rules governing the issuance of transit visas to Jews by its consuls in November 1939. The issuing of visas in contravention of regulations was widespread at Portuguese consulates all over Europe, including by Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, who issued substantial numbers of transit visas at his own initiative amid the Fall of France in May and June 1940. Large numbers of refugees, including some 60,000 to 80,000 Jews, continued to pass through Portugal on route for the United States and Latin America throughout the war although their numbers fell significantly from 1941. Lisbon was permitted to accommodate a number of foreign Jewish relief organisations.
The Salazar regime was generally aware of the extermination of Jews in German-occupied Europe from 1942 and took some measures to repatriate Jews with Portuguese citizenship from Vichy France and Axis-occupied Greece. An initiative to intercede on behalf of the Sephardic Jews in the German-occupied Netherlands at the initiative of Moisés Bensabat Amzalak was nonetheless unsuccessful. Portugal continued to trade with Nazi Germany throughout the conflict and may have received gold looted in the Holocaust in exchange. In the final years of the war, the regime provided tacit support for a number of small-scale rescue operations including the issuance of 1,000 protective passports to Hungarian Jews by the diplomat Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho in late 1944.
Awareness and response to the Holocaust
From 1941, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs received information from its consuls in German-occupied Europe about the escalation of the persecution of Jews. It was also kept informed of revelations about the extermination of Jews which had been published in Allied countries from 1942. The historian Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses wrote:
Salazar's analysis of the European situation [...] was based on an old-fashioned brand of realpolitik which saw states and their leaders acting out of reasonable and quantifiable considerations. The murderous racial enterprise that drove the Third Reich appears to have bypassed Salazar, despite the information that must have been accessible to him (very little of which survives, however, in his archive). The Portuguese press, meanwhile, was prevented from reporting on the Final Solution as its details became known, and Salazar never made a pronouncement on the subject. The fate of Europe's Jewish population was not seen as an issue that affected the national interest...
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, German officials became interested in preventing the flight of Jews from their occupied territories in Europe so that they could instead be captured and killed. In July 1942 the Reich Security Main Office asked German diplomats in Lisbon if it was possible to "prevent emigration from Portugal" as they had interest in "the seizure of the Jews...as part of the final solution for the Jewish question in Europe." In September the German consul in Lisbon advised the German Foreign Office that it was pointless to ask the Portuguese government to "extradite the Jews originating from Germany or territories occupied by Germany" and similarly it would be useless to try and accomplish the same through links between German and Portuguese security forces. An advisor at the German legation in Lisbon also wrote to the Foreign Office that the Portuguese viewed the movement of Jews through its territory as a humanitarian matter and that Portuguese authorities would reject extradition requests of German Jews, as they understood German law to declare the nationality of its Jews voided if they traveled abroad. The Portuguese authorities were unaware of these discussions.
Repatriation of Portuguese Jews
In February 1943, the Nazi authorities issued a repatriation ultimatum (Heimschaffungsaktion) informing the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Portuguese Jews, like those from other neutral states, would no longer enjoy protected status in German-occupied Europe and provided a time-window for their repatriation. In general, the Portuguese regime was usually willing to assist small numbers of Jews considered "Portuguese" but only protected a small proportion of those who claimed assistance. This included 137 Sephardic Jews of Portuguese descent from Vichy France in 1943 and 1944. 19 Portuguese Jews from Thessalonika in Axis-occupied Greece were repatriated to Portugal after already having been deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after a persistent exchange of notes between Lisbon and Berlin. However, Irene Flunser Pimentel argues "Portugal fell very short of what it could have done, only saving a tiny part of those who were threatened to be killed by the Nazis, and knowing that was their fate" and noted that repatriation of Portuguese Jews from German-occupied Europe was dependent on "rigorous proof of their nationality". Tom Gallagher, Salazar's biographer, wrote that there is no doubt that far more people could have been rescued and saved if Salazar had had more time at his disposal to focus on the peril which European Jews had been cast into, but arguably Salazar was no more negligent than Churchill or Roosevelt who, in public, played down the deadly attempts to kill millions of Jews when the true extent of their plight had become known to the allied leaders by 1942.
Moisés Bensabat Amzalak, a leading Portuguese Jewish dignitary and regime loyalist, who had headed the Lisbon Jewish community since 1926, interceded with Salazar on behalf of the roughly 4,300 Portuguese-Sephardic Jews living in the German-occupied Netherlands. In March 1943, Salazar ordered the Portuguese Legation in Berlin to enquire whether the German authorities would permit these to be treated like Portuguese nationals who could still be evacuated. The Germans were inflexible and rejected Salazar's entreaties. Salazar expressed deep sadness when he told Amazalak that he had not been successful. The extermination of Jews in the Netherlands had already begun and continued into 1944. Only around 400 individuals within the Portuguese community survived the war. In 1943, Amzalak together with Leite Pinto, under Salazar's supervision, put in place a rescue mission for European Jews. Francisco de Paula Leite Pinto, General Manager of the Beira Alta Railway, which operated the line from Figueira da Foz to the Spanish frontier, organized several trains that brought refugees from Berlin and other European cities to Portugal. Salazar had been persuaded to instruct consuls in territories under Nazi occupation to validate all passports held by Jews even though the documents were known to be far from reliable.
Following the German invasion of Hungary, previously a German ally, Salazar recalled the Portuguese ambassador and left Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho as the chargé d'affaires. Branquinho issued protective passports to an estimated 1,000 Hungarian Jews with the approval of the Salazar regime in similar fashion to the Spanish and Swedish legations. Branquinho was finally recalled to Lisbon on 30 October 1944. Tom Gallagher argues that Branquinho's case has been largely overlooked, relative to Sousa Mendes, probably owing to the fact that he was coordinating his actions with Salazar and that weakens the core argument in the Sousa Mendes legend that he was defying a tyrannical superior. Gallagher argues that the disproportionate attention given to Sousa Mendes suggests that wartime history is in danger of being used in contemporary Portugal as a political weapon.
Portuguese-German trade
Portugal exported tungsten ore to Nazi Germany throughout the war. The metal, used for hardening steel used in armaments, was initially bought in escudos but Salazar later insisted that payment be made in gold amid concerns at the Banco de Portugal that the German regime was using forged currency. The American Office of Strategic Services estimated that Portugal received a total of 400 tons of gold from Germany, one of the largest sums of any of its trading partners. The British ambassador to Portugal, Ronald Campbell, told Salazar that much of the gold was of "disputed origin", but Salazar ignored this. In 1998 the United States alleged that much of the gold had been stolen from Holocaust victims by German authorities. In response, a commission of inquiry was established in 1999, led by Mario Soares. The inquiry concluded that Portugal had not known about the gold's origin at the time it was received and thus there were "no legal, political or moral reasons" for Portugal to reimburse Holocaust survivors.
In December 2019 Portugal joined the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Portugal's first museum dedicated to the Holocaust was opened in Oporto in February 2021.
German expansion led to the passage of substantial numbers of refugees, including some Jews, through Portugal in 1939 and 1940 for the first time. Fearful of the economic and political consequences, the Salazar regime tightened the rules governing the issuance of transit visas to Jews by its consuls in November 1939. The issuing of visas in contravention of regulations was widespread at Portuguese consulates all over Europe, including by Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, who issued substantial numbers of transit visas at his own initiative amid the Fall of France in May and June 1940. Large numbers of refugees, including some 60,000 to 80,000 Jews, continued to pass through Portugal on route for the United States and Latin America throughout the war although their numbers fell significantly from 1941. Lisbon was permitted to accommodate a number of foreign Jewish relief organisations.
The Salazar regime was generally aware of the extermination of Jews in German-occupied Europe from 1942 and took some measures to repatriate Jews with Portuguese citizenship from Vichy France and Axis-occupied Greece. An initiative to intercede on behalf of the Sephardic Jews in the German-occupied Netherlands at the initiative of Moisés Bensabat Amzalak was nonetheless unsuccessful. Portugal continued to trade with Nazi Germany throughout the conflict and may have received gold looted in the Holocaust in exchange. In the final years of the war, the regime provided tacit support for a number of small-scale rescue operations including the issuance of 1,000 protective passports to Hungarian Jews by the diplomat Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho in late 1944.
Awareness and response to the Holocaust
From 1941, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs received information from its consuls in German-occupied Europe about the escalation of the persecution of Jews. It was also kept informed of revelations about the extermination of Jews which had been published in Allied countries from 1942. The historian Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses wrote:
Salazar's analysis of the European situation [...] was based on an old-fashioned brand of realpolitik which saw states and their leaders acting out of reasonable and quantifiable considerations. The murderous racial enterprise that drove the Third Reich appears to have bypassed Salazar, despite the information that must have been accessible to him (very little of which survives, however, in his archive). The Portuguese press, meanwhile, was prevented from reporting on the Final Solution as its details became known, and Salazar never made a pronouncement on the subject. The fate of Europe's Jewish population was not seen as an issue that affected the national interest...
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, German officials became interested in preventing the flight of Jews from their occupied territories in Europe so that they could instead be captured and killed. In July 1942 the Reich Security Main Office asked German diplomats in Lisbon if it was possible to "prevent emigration from Portugal" as they had interest in "the seizure of the Jews...as part of the final solution for the Jewish question in Europe." In September the German consul in Lisbon advised the German Foreign Office that it was pointless to ask the Portuguese government to "extradite the Jews originating from Germany or territories occupied by Germany" and similarly it would be useless to try and accomplish the same through links between German and Portuguese security forces. An advisor at the German legation in Lisbon also wrote to the Foreign Office that the Portuguese viewed the movement of Jews through its territory as a humanitarian matter and that Portuguese authorities would reject extradition requests of German Jews, as they understood German law to declare the nationality of its Jews voided if they traveled abroad. The Portuguese authorities were unaware of these discussions.
Repatriation of Portuguese Jews
In February 1943, the Nazi authorities issued a repatriation ultimatum (Heimschaffungsaktion) informing the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Portuguese Jews, like those from other neutral states, would no longer enjoy protected status in German-occupied Europe and provided a time-window for their repatriation. In general, the Portuguese regime was usually willing to assist small numbers of Jews considered "Portuguese" but only protected a small proportion of those who claimed assistance. This included 137 Sephardic Jews of Portuguese descent from Vichy France in 1943 and 1944. 19 Portuguese Jews from Thessalonika in Axis-occupied Greece were repatriated to Portugal after already having been deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after a persistent exchange of notes between Lisbon and Berlin. However, Irene Flunser Pimentel argues "Portugal fell very short of what it could have done, only saving a tiny part of those who were threatened to be killed by the Nazis, and knowing that was their fate" and noted that repatriation of Portuguese Jews from German-occupied Europe was dependent on "rigorous proof of their nationality". Tom Gallagher, Salazar's biographer, wrote that there is no doubt that far more people could have been rescued and saved if Salazar had had more time at his disposal to focus on the peril which European Jews had been cast into, but arguably Salazar was no more negligent than Churchill or Roosevelt who, in public, played down the deadly attempts to kill millions of Jews when the true extent of their plight had become known to the allied leaders by 1942.
Moisés Bensabat Amzalak, a leading Portuguese Jewish dignitary and regime loyalist, who had headed the Lisbon Jewish community since 1926, interceded with Salazar on behalf of the roughly 4,300 Portuguese-Sephardic Jews living in the German-occupied Netherlands. In March 1943, Salazar ordered the Portuguese Legation in Berlin to enquire whether the German authorities would permit these to be treated like Portuguese nationals who could still be evacuated. The Germans were inflexible and rejected Salazar's entreaties. Salazar expressed deep sadness when he told Amazalak that he had not been successful. The extermination of Jews in the Netherlands had already begun and continued into 1944. Only around 400 individuals within the Portuguese community survived the war. In 1943, Amzalak together with Leite Pinto, under Salazar's supervision, put in place a rescue mission for European Jews. Francisco de Paula Leite Pinto, General Manager of the Beira Alta Railway, which operated the line from Figueira da Foz to the Spanish frontier, organized several trains that brought refugees from Berlin and other European cities to Portugal. Salazar had been persuaded to instruct consuls in territories under Nazi occupation to validate all passports held by Jews even though the documents were known to be far from reliable.
Following the German invasion of Hungary, previously a German ally, Salazar recalled the Portuguese ambassador and left Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho as the chargé d'affaires. Branquinho issued protective passports to an estimated 1,000 Hungarian Jews with the approval of the Salazar regime in similar fashion to the Spanish and Swedish legations. Branquinho was finally recalled to Lisbon on 30 October 1944. Tom Gallagher argues that Branquinho's case has been largely overlooked, relative to Sousa Mendes, probably owing to the fact that he was coordinating his actions with Salazar and that weakens the core argument in the Sousa Mendes legend that he was defying a tyrannical superior. Gallagher argues that the disproportionate attention given to Sousa Mendes suggests that wartime history is in danger of being used in contemporary Portugal as a political weapon.
Portuguese-German trade
Portugal exported tungsten ore to Nazi Germany throughout the war. The metal, used for hardening steel used in armaments, was initially bought in escudos but Salazar later insisted that payment be made in gold amid concerns at the Banco de Portugal that the German regime was using forged currency. The American Office of Strategic Services estimated that Portugal received a total of 400 tons of gold from Germany, one of the largest sums of any of its trading partners. The British ambassador to Portugal, Ronald Campbell, told Salazar that much of the gold was of "disputed origin", but Salazar ignored this. In 1998 the United States alleged that much of the gold had been stolen from Holocaust victims by German authorities. In response, a commission of inquiry was established in 1999, led by Mario Soares. The inquiry concluded that Portugal had not known about the gold's origin at the time it was received and thus there were "no legal, political or moral reasons" for Portugal to reimburse Holocaust survivors.
In December 2019 Portugal joined the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Portugal's first museum dedicated to the Holocaust was opened in Oporto in February 2021.
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