About the Individual

Rudolf BALL, a German Jew, was imprisoned as an enemy alien in the Cours du Médoc internment camp in Bordeaux, France in June 1940. The entire camp requested and received visas from Aristides de Sousa Mendes.

The reason that BALL was in France was that the previous year, in May of 1939, he had been on the ill-fated St. Louis ship that sailed from Hamburg to the United States but was sent back to Europe. He was one of around 250 passengers on the ship to be allowed to disembark in France.

Despite receiving the Sousa Mendes visa, he did not survive. He arrived at the French-Spanish border too late, after it had already been sealed, was rearrested and sent to Drancy. From there he was deported in August of 1942 to Auschwitz, where he died in 1944.