Aristides de Sousa Mendes do Amaral e Abranches its national medal of honor. After 46 years of repudiation as an insubordinate bureaucrat. Dr. de Sousa Mendes will be rightfully returned to a place of dignity as a hero of the holocaust. You may be aware of the case of Dr. de Sousa Mendes. a Portuguese consular official in Bordeaux. France. who saved 30.000 Jews and others in 1940 by issuing them Portuguese visas so they could flee the oncoming Nazi invasion. Dr. de Sousa Mendes made a decision to save human lives at the risk of his own. Recalled to Lisbon by the Portuguese Government. he was removed from the diplomatic corps.