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Community Corner

9th Annual Jewish Film Festival of Central NJ - DISOBEDIENCE: THE SOUSA MENDES STORY

In May 1940, when Nazi troops invaded France, an amazing rescue operation sprang into existence, thanks to one man’s willingness to defy his government. That man was Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese Consul General stationed in Bordeaux, France. Despite Circular 14, which ordered Portuguese diplomats to deny visas to any Holocaust refugees, Sousa Mendes (portrayed by Bernard Le Coq) issued visas to some 30,000 refugees, about a third of whom were Jewish. Noted Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer calls Sousa Mendes’s willful defiance “the largest rescue action by a single individual during the Holocaust.”

2013 Best Film at the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival 

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