Portugal and the Holocaust
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.
Fearful of the economic and political consequences, the Salazar regime, like many other countries, tightened the rules governing the issuance of transit visas by its consuls in November 1939.
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.
[4] The escalation of anti-Semitic persecutions in Eastern Europe, coupled with the rapid rise of Nazism in Germany, prompted the initial migration of Ashkenazi Jews to Portugal.
Initially, they established the "Portuguese Commission for Assistance to Refugee-Jews in Portugal" (COMASSIS), under the leadership of Augusto Isaac de Esaguy and having Adolfo Benarús as Honorary Chairman.
[5] COMASSIS provided refugees with medical and psychological care, and voiced their needs with the Portuguese government and authorities regarding the issuance of residence and work permits.
[12] Although overtly discriminatory, Neill Lochery argues that the Circular was motivated principally by economic considerations and that similar restrictions had been adopted in other neutral countries.
[17] He considers that Jews were prevented from settling in Portugal primarily because the regime feared foreign influence in general, and particularly the arrival of communists fleeing from Germany.
[1] On 26 June 1940, four days after the French armistice, Salazar authorised the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS-HICEM) in Paris to transfer its main office to Lisbon.
[23] In June 1940, upon the request of Frederick May Eliot, president of the Unitarian Service Committee, Waitstill Sharp and his wife Martha flew to Europe and set up their operations at the Metropole Hotel in Lisbon, Portugal.
[27] In 1940 Augusto d’Esaguy together with Moisés Bensabat Amzalak played a decisive role on behalf of the Luxembourgish Jews whom the Germans deported from Luxembourg aboard the Zwangstransporte.
Trains arrived regularly with more than 50 persons each, COMASSIS provided accommodation to refugees in hotels and boarding-houses; helped them with their visas and acted with shipping companies and the Portuguese authorities on their behalf.
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.
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.
[30] 19 Portuguese Jews from Thessalonika in Axis-occupied Greece were repatriated to Portugal after already having been deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp[30] after a persistent exchange of notes between Lisbon and Berlin.
[33] 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".
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.
[36] 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.
[12] 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.
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.
