Montrealer honours Portuguese diplomat's 'extraordinary story of courage'
Woman discovers her Jewish heritage
By JAN RAVENSBERGEN, The Gazette
Andrée Lotey found an old suitcase full of papers and photographs that led her to discover that her father had been saved by Sousa Mendes during the 1940s.
Photograph by: Allen McInnis, The Gazette
MONTREAL - Surely, says Andrée Lotey, there must be other battered, long-forgotten suitcases or boxes hidden away in Montreal basements or attics - ready to reveal the same kind of spine-tingling family history she's uncovered.
Tattered papers in a suitcase unearthed in 2007 after her mother's death at 83 led Lotey to connect with roots she never knew she had.
Simultaneously, the university French instructor discovered she owes her existence to Aristides de Sousa Mendes - a selfless Portuguese diplomat who saved between 10,000 and 30,000 Europeans from the Nazis early in the Second World War. His defiance of his
government's policy cost Sousa Mendes his career.
Lotey's father was among those to whom Sousa Mendes provided passage that was officially forbidden.
Born a Polish Jew in Warsaw, originally carrying the name Jacob Lotenberg, her father rebuilt his life as Jacques Lotey in Montreal, thanks to travel documents signed by Sousa Mendes in France.
Jacques Lotey married here, and died when Andrée Lotey was just 5 years old.
"Initially, I wanted to keep this private," said Andrée Lotey, who was raised Roman Catholic and had no inkling of her Jewish heritage until she started exploring the suitcase in her mother's Notre Dame de Grâce basement.
"And then I realized that.... there are fewer and fewer people" from the Holocaust era "left to attest."
Above all, she said, the story of Sousa Mendes is "an inspiration. It really has to be told. It's such a universally beautiful, extraordinary story of courage."
Her four-year quest led to "one of the most terrific experiences I've ever had in my life - meeting Ruth Mendes" of Montreal, a daughter-in-law of Sousa Mendes and widow of the late Luis Felipe Mendes, one of the former consul's sons.
As Portugal's consul in Bordeaux, France, Sousa Mendes was instrumental in providing refugees from across Europe with visas to Portugal. Andrée Lotey said her research shows that in June 1940, Sousa Mendes personally led Jacques Lotey, "in a group of 100
to 200," to a border crossing that would let them through, after the group had been turned back at a first one.
Sousa Mendes was later stripped of his position, and put on trial by the Salazar dictatorship. He died in poverty in 1954.
Lotey has become one of the sparkplugs in a nascent campaign find survivors of Holocaust refugees who may owe their lives to Sousa Mendes. She joined the board of directors of the non-profit Sousa Mendes Foundation, based in Seattle, which aims to transform
the rundown former Sousa Mendes family home in Portugal into a museum to his memory.
Alice Herscovitch, executive director of the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre, said her centre also is seeking names. Perhaps half or more of those Sousa Mendes helped save were Jewish, foundation spokesperson Harry Oesterreicher said, noting that the
consul actions contravened a Portuguese government document called "Circular 14."
They "received Portuguese visas in the south of France (Bordeaux, Bayonne, Hendaye or Toulouse) in April, May or June of 1940, and subsequently travelled through Spain to Portugal, from where they scattered to the United States, Canada, Brazil, the U.K.,
and elsewhere between 1940 and 1942."
With the search only formally launched Jan. 9, "we're getting a slow trickle" of information, including "several families who have self-identified," Oesterreicher said.
His father was originally from Vienna and, as a child, was among those saved by Sousa Mendes.
The Sousa Mendes family history, by Luis Felipe Mendes, is at
saudades.org/mendes2.htm; Harry Oesterreicher's blog detailing the 2010 memorial trip is at
sousamendesvoyage.com.
For more information: sousamendesfoundation.org
Online Now 
Send Email