I rather stand with God against man than with man against God. –Aristide de Sousa Mendes explaining his sacrifice (cited in Wilke, 2007; translated from the French by this blogger).
In March of this year, 2025, I stepped out of the Willam James Center for Research in Lisbon, and crossed Tobacco Garden Road to take another look at the Museo do Fado. Knowing little about this Portuguese variant of the Blues beyond a few songs by Amalia Rodrigues, I felt it was time for a bit more education. An education I got, but it was an unexpected one.
Once in the door, I made a sharp right turn and found myself in the souvenir shop, a temptation I am constitutionally unable to resist. Almost immediately, a French-language book entitled L’histoire des Juifs Portugais caught my eye. I don’t believe in Providence, but I savor the fine art cultivating cool coincidences.
What coincidence? Just the day before, I had visited a museum dedicated to the history of the City of Lisbon. The town, according to myth, was founded by Odysseus, though I’d rather credit the Phoenicians. Paleolithic peoples had been around, then the Romans came, and eventually the modern-day Catholic Portuguese. Where could I learn, I asked an official-looking man, about the Visigoths, the Moors, and the Jews? “Sinto muito,” he shrugged, or something to that effect. I felt grouchy. Teaching history by omission is not my bag.
The Story of Aristides de Sousa Mendes
So, seeing Professor Carsten Wilke’s (2007) book, en bon français, put me in a cheery mood. Wilke must be, like me, a latter-day Visigoth, I figured, but I had no interest in tracking down his book en bon allemand. I was ready to hurl myself out of my comfort zone and into a struggle with the impenetrable language of La Grande Nation once more, eons after high school.
And here is the story I would like to share with you, in all its brutal brevity. Near the end of the book, Wilke describes one man’s crisis of conscience, which this man resolved by doing the right thing at great cost to himself and his family. In 1940, Aristides de Sousa Mendes was the Portuguese Consul General in Bordeaux, France, a city that found itself swamped with refugees fleeing ahead of the advancing German forces.
On the street, de Sousa ran into an Eastern European rabbi, who had lived in Brussels for 10 years prior. They talked and found rapport. The rabbi said he wanted to take his family to Lisbon and go on to America from there. Could the consul provide visas? De Sousa said no; the fascist dictator Salazar had prohibited it. Yet, the consul invited the rabbi and his family into his residence for the night. When the rabbi persisted with his request, the consul relented and offered to issue visas to the family.
In an astonishing move, the rabbi declined the offer. He would accept, though, he explained, if de Sousa gave visas to the thousands of refugees stranded in Bordeaux. Now de Sousa’s crisis of conscience hit with full force. One of his sons advised him to do the humanitarian thing; another counseled against it, for the sake of de Sousa’s own livelihood and oath of office.
Sousa Mendes Defies Orders
Next morning, de Sousa got dressed, shaved, threw open the doors to his office and exclaimed “Let’s do this!” (in Portuguese, we assume). Working for days, he produced thousands of visas, defied his government’s orders to desist, and led the refugees himself across the Spanish border. Salazar promptly relieved him of his post, his honors, and his pension. To add irony, Salazar later took credit for opening an escape route for those fleeing the Nazis. Not until the 1980s was de Souza rehabilitated. He is now considered one of the greatest men Portugal has ever produced. There is a cenotaph (an empty symbolic sarcophagus) in his honor in the Panteão (the national monument in Lisbon) overlooking the Tagus River.
One person can make a difference, at the right place and at the right time, and if they find the strength to face down the crisis of conscience (Krueger, 2010). Social psychology has long been fascinated with those who fail in such a situation (think of the research by Asch, Milgram, Darley & Latané, and their tales of conformity, obedience, and bystander apathy). It is well to remember those who do the right thing at great personal cost (Krueger, 2010).
Ethics and Morality Essential Reads
Oh, and the rabbi’s name was Chaim Tzvi Kruger. He could not have known that his gamble (an ultimatum game) would pay off. Was it faith, moral fiber, or an intuitive understanding of psycho-behavioral economics that moved Kruger’s hand?
Decision-Having Over Decision-Making
As to de Sousa, how did he make his decision to help? Perhaps it is more accurate to speak of decision-having than decision-making. The latter term, which is the standard, implies agency and a certain freedom to do otherwise, whereas the former term suggests a sort of suffering. The person realizes what he or she must do after the mind has, mostly unconsciously, ground up the relevant information, emotions, and preferences.
The decision eventually rises up into consciousness, offering the person the certainty of a purpose than cannot be denied. A decision of this kind is rather like a passion. Freedom of the will, in the folkloric understanding, is not required (Krueger & Grüning, 2025), and the actor can still be praised or blamed. De Sousa, of course, is praiseworthy.