GSU Initiated Unprecedented Educational Campaign of Support

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 6, 2018

Girl Scouts of Troop 756 at the Tabernacle Before the Concert

In a gesture of support for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Girl Scouts of Utah launched an innovative and unique program for its more than 8000 girls and 3000 adult members. The campaign encouraged Utah Girl Scouts, from kindergarten through the 12th grade, and their caring adults, to attend the performance of Circular 14: The Apotheosis of Aristides by Neely Bruce, that took place January 27, 2018 at the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah.  The program was designed to increase their awareness and understanding of the Holocaust through music.

Scouts who attended the concert earned badges appropriate to each level. Girl Scouts of Utah CEO Janet Frasier noted that “this event provides the kind of experience that will connect many Girl Scouts with a historical event of monumental proportions. We believe this experience will contribute meaningfully to their understanding of the world, their own leadership development and advocacy for others.”

Dramatic Oratorio “Circular 14: The Apotheosis of Aristides” by Neely Bruce to be Presented in a Free Concert in the Mormon Tabernacle on International Holocaust Remembrance Day

One Performance Only!

Saturday, January 27, 2018, 7:00 p.m.

The Tabernacle at Temple Square

Salt Lake City, UT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 10, 2017

The Sousa Mendes Foundation and the Utah Youth Orchestras and Ensembles present a performance in the Mormon Tabernacle of the oratorio Circular 14: The Apotheosis of Aristides by Neely Bruce.  This free concert, conducted by the world-renowned conductor Barlow Bradford, will be held on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day of 2018.  The event is part of the Temple Square Concert Series and is free and open to the public.

The piece tells the dramatic true story of the Holocaust hero Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese Consul General in Bordeaux, who saved thousands of lives in the spring of 1940 by issuing Portuguese visas to refugees desperate to escape Nazi-occupied France.  From Portugal these refugees boarded ships to freedom in the United States and other final destinations.  The visas from Sousa Mendes saved their lives and showed how one person can make a difference.  But Sousa Mendes was punished by his government for defying a decree called “Circular 14” that forbade the issuance of visas to the majority of refugees.  He died in poverty and disgrace, erased from history.  But now this “unsung” hero is being “sung” — and his story told.

The Mayor of Salt Lake County, Ben McAdams, will deliver opening remarks.  “This concert promises to be a spiritually powerful remembrance of how an ordinary man performed extraordinary acts to defy evil. It is our responsibility and sacred duty as citizens to ‘never forget’ the Holocaust, its toll on the world and how nations rallied to defeat the Nazis,” said Mayor McAdams.

Soloists include David Sauer, tenor (Aristides de Sousa Mendes), Michelle Pedersen, soprano (Angelina), Andrew Neumayer, baritone (Rabbi Kruger), Adam Griffiths, tenor (Salazar), and Elizabeth Peters, soprano (Andrée Cibial).  The narrator is the actor Michel Gill (César).  Featuring the University of Utah Chamber Choir, the University of Utah A Cappella Choir, and seven high school choirs from across the state:  Syracuse High School (Syracuse, UT), Pineview High School (St. George, UT), American Heritage School (American Fork, UT), Alta High School (Sandy, UT), Westlake High School (Saratoga Springs, UT), Woods Cross High School (Woods Cross, UT), and Hillcrest High School (Midvale, UT).  An accompanying video montage of historic images is by Carole Kim.  The orchestral musicians are being prepared by Barbara Scowcroft, Music Director of the Utah Youth Orchestras and Ensembles.

The piece was performed with a reduced ensemble in Los Angeles in 2016, but this will be the first performance of the definitive version with full orchestra.  In attendance will be Dr. Daniel Mattis, a Sousa Mendes visa recipient living in Utah, and two of Sousa Mendes’s grandsons:  Gerald Mendes and Aristides Mendes, one of whom also lives in Utah.

Sponsors include:  The Lynn and Richard Bleil Charitable Foundation, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Foundation, the Lawrence T. and Janet T. Dee Foundation, the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation, the John and Marcia Price Family Foundation, Transworld Business Advisors of Utah County, the United Jewish Federation of Utah, the Utah Division of Arts and Museums, Zions Bank, and numerous individual donors.

For artist bios and information about the piece and composer, please click here.

For media inquiries, please contact: Mary Kay Lazarus Public Relations, 801-328-8899, mkl@mklpr.com.

Entrance is free, but tickets are required, and are available at www.tinyurl.com/circular14 and pressing OBTAIN TICKETS HERE in the right-hand column, or by calling 1-801-570-0080 or 1-866-537-8457 (1-866-LDS-TIKS), or by coming to the Tabernacle Ticket Office window in person.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 9, 2017

Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) will be honored by the Sousa Mendes Foundation, an organization named for Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a rescuer of thousands of Holocaust refugees. The event — which will be a luncheon titled “A Toast to Freedom!” — will be held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place, New York, NY, on Sunday, October 29, 2017, from noon until 4 p.m.

“I am humbled and proud to be honored at an event in remembrance of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a great hero who, at tremendous cost and risk to himself, defied his government and saved thousands of men, women, and children from death at the hands of the Nazis,” said the Congressman.

Congressman Nadler’s record has earned him scores of awards and praise from various progressive groups, including the League of Conservation Voters, Planned Parenthood, the NAACP, the Human Rights Campaign, the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence, Children’s Defense Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the American Federation of Teachers. In the 2015 Time magazine Person of The Year issue, Jerry Nadler was named as a Teddy Award recipient for political courage. Recently Congressman Nadler has been an outspoken champion for refugees trapped at JFK airport during the “travel ban” and he has been one of the most stalwart defenders of the U.S. Constitution in the U.S. Congress.

Other honorees at the event will be psychologist and author Dr. Eva Fogelman and and refugee advocate and teacher Maggie Favretti.

The Sousa Mendes Foundation, founded in 2010, is dedicated to perpetuating the memory of Aristides de Sousa Mendes as an example of compassion and moral courage. He rescued the lives of thousands of refugees in 1940 in Bordeaux, France, where he was stationed as the Consul General of Portugal. The Foundation is active worldwide, and its activities have been profiled in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Haaretz, The Forward, The Independent, and on National Public Radio. www.sousamendesfoundation.org

For tickets and more information, please go to: http://sousamendesfoundation.org/toast-to-freedom/.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 9, 2017

Dr. Eva Fogelman, world-renowned authority on the altruistic personality during the Holocaust, will be honored by the Sousa Mendes Foundation, an organization named for Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a rescuer of thousands of Holocaust refugees. The event — which will be a luncheon titled “A Toast to Freedom!” — will be held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place, New York, NY, on Sunday, October 29, 2017, from noon until 4 p.m.

Eva Fogelman is a social psychologist, psychotherapist, author and filmmaker. She is the author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book, Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust, which illuminates the psychology and history of rescuers such as Aristides de Sousa Mendes. Today she uses those lessons to raise consciousness about an “us-against-them” culture. She co-founded the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous and she is co-director of Child Development Research which was involved in the creation of the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust. She is an advisor to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and is a frequent public speaker and guest on television.

“I am delighted that the Portuguese government is finally giving Aristides de Sousa Mendes the honor he so deserves and that I have the opportunity to offer his memory for a blessing,” says Dr. Fogelman. Other honorees at the event will be Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and refugee advocate and teacher Maggie Favretti. Both are tireless advocate for contemporary refugees. Dr. Fogelman will be introduced by Robert Jacobvitz, one of the prime-movers in the cause to have Sousa Mendes recognized by the US and Portuguese governments.

The Sousa Mendes Foundation, founded in 2010, is dedicated to perpetuating the memory of Aristides de Sousa Mendes as an example of compassion and moral courage. He rescued the lives of thousands of refugees in 1940 in Bordeaux, France, where he was stationed as the Consul General of Portugal. The Foundation is active worldwide, and its activities have been profiled in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Haaretz, The Forward, The Independent, and on National Public Radio. www.sousamendesfoundation.org

For tickets and more information, please go to: http://sousamendesfoundation.org/toast-to-freedom/.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 9, 2017

Scarsdale High School teacher Maggie Favretti, founder and advisor of the international group “Students for Refugees,” will be honored by the Sousa Mendes Foundation, an organization named for Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a rescuer of thousands of Holocaust refugees. The event — which will be a luncheon titled “A Toast to Freedom!” — will be held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place, New York, NY, on Sunday, October 29, 2017, from noon until 4 p.m.

Maggie Favretti is a believer in learning by doing, and has created a number of empowering courses, including Food Policy and Justice, and City 2.0. In 2016, she and a colleague in Germany designed an exchange with the purpose of studying the refugee crisis with a small group of students. The students created Students for Refugees, which now has 20+ chapters in Westchester and around the world, and which supports students in their efforts to help refugees, advocates for refugee youth, and directly assists in resettlement.

Other honorees at the event will be Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and psychologist and author Dr. Eva Fogelman. Congressman Nadler is a tireless advocate for contemporary refugees, and Dr. Fogelman is an authority on Holocaust history and the rescuer personality. She is the author of Conscience & Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust.

The Sousa Mendes Foundation, founded in 2010, is dedicated to perpetuating the memory of Aristides de Sousa Mendes as an example of compassion and moral courage. He rescued the lives of thousands of refugees in 1940 in Bordeaux, France, where he was stationed as the Consul General of Portugal. The Foundation is active worldwide, and its activities have been profiled in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Haaretz, The Forward, The Independent, and on National Public Radio. www.sousamendesfoundation.org

For tickets and more information, please go to: http://sousamendesfoundation.org/toast-to-freedom/.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 13, 2017

PARTNERSHIP WITH LONG ISLAND UNIVERSITY — A CAMPUS THAT IN 1940 HOUSED HOLOCAUST REFUGEES WHEN IT WAS STILL A PRIVATE ESTATE

The Sousa Mendes Foundation, based in Huntington, NY, has teamed up with the Palmer School of Library and Information Science at nearby Long Island University to process its significant collection related to the Sousa Mendes story.

Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese Consul General in Bordeaux, France during the Second World War, rescued thousands of refugees escaping Nazi-occupied Europe in what has been termed by the Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer “perhaps the largest rescue action by a single individual during the Holocaust.” The Foundation is providing the world with knowledge of this brave man’s good work while providing a rich educational experience for Palmer School students in the form of a highly sought after archival opportunity.

After being rescued by Aristides de Sousa Mendes in 1940, the visa recipients found safe havens all over the globe, including on Long Island. A number of them settled in Great Neck, and one family — the Royal Family of Luxembourg — resided on the Long Island University campus when it was still the “Hillwood” estate belonging to Marjorie Merriweather Post and E. F. Hutton. The Luxembourg Royal Family resided in the building that is now the school library.

The Sousa Mendes Collection includes original World War II passports with Sousa Mendes visas, other artifacts belonging to Holocaust refugees, First Edition refugee memoirs, newspaper clipping scrapbooks from the war period to the present, photographs, correspondence, audio-visual materials, and posthumous honors and awards given to Aristides de Sousa Mendes. The Collection includes the files of the International Committee to Commemorate Dr. Aristides de Sousa Mendes (active in the 1980s and 90s) and items from families rescued by Aristides de Sousa Mendes and his associates José de Seabra, Manuel de Vieira Braga and Emile Gissot. The materials are in Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Portuguese, and Yiddish.

“Putting my skills and expertise towards increasing awareness and access to materials related to a subject as compelling as Sousa Mendes is not only exciting but a privilege,” said archivist Nicole Bubolo, an alumna of the Palmer School’s Master of Library Sciences graduate program. “The variety of materials in this collection certainly relates easily to the knowledge gained from the specializations and certificates I earned via the Palmer School,” she added.

For Barbara Boies, a current Palmer School graduate student, this project “allows me to practice the skills that I am learning while finishing my MSLIS degree at the Palmer School.” The Foundation’s collection relates to other important collections of World War II materials. “The scope of our work has also included research involving the discovery of missing correspondence with Eleanor Roosevelt in the archives of FDR’s presidential library,” she explained. Other members of the archive team include Olivia Mattis, Ph.D., President and COO of the Sousa Mendes Foundation; Robert Jacobvitz, Chair of the Foundation’s International Advisory Council; and archivist Scott Keefer, who holds an MA in public history from St. John’s University.

The Sousa Mendes Foundation actively seeks to add to the Sousa Mendes Collection. If you are in possession of family memoirs, artifacts, or passports connected to the exodus of 1940 through Portugal and the action of Aristides de Sousa Mendes or his associates José de Seabra, Manuel de Vieira Braga and Emile Gissot that you would like to donate, please contact us. Thank you!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 19, 2017

EXHIBITION ON RESCUERS AT THE HOLOCAUST AND HUMAN RIGHTS CENTER OF MAINE

The Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine will open its new exhibit, Heroism in Unjust Times: Rescuers During the Holocaust on Wednesday, May 3^rd. The exhibit will be on display at the Michael Klahr Center, located on the campus of the University of Maine at Augusta through Friday, August 11^th.

Despite the potentially fatal consequences, thousands of individuals risked their lives to help those targeted by the Nazis. Heroism in Unjust Times: Rescuers During the Holocaust, celebrates and honors those righteous individuals. The exhibit will also share stories of individuals and their descendants who were saved by these rescuers and settled in Maine and nearby.

There will be an opening event on Wednesday, May 3^rd from 5 PM to 7 PM, with a program beginning at 5:30 PM. Refreshments will be provided and there is no fee to attend, although donations are gratefully accepted.

The program will include several speakers whose families’ stories and artifacts are featured in the exhibit: Julie Lanoie, whose grandmother Allegonda Balte-Peper was involved with the Dutch Resistance and cared for some 45 Jews, in addition to hiding her Jewish husband, Philip Peper, in their home; and Walt Bannon, whose grandfather Auguste Felix Florin was involved with the Belgian Resistance.

There will be several artifacts and stories of rescuers during the Holocaust featured in the exhibit, including that of Portuguese consul Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who issued thousands of visas illegally to Jews and non-Jews targeted by the Nazis; Oskar Schindler, responsible for saving approximately 1,200 Jewish men, women and children; Raoul Wallenberg, who saved as many as 100,000 Hungarian Jews; Father Bruno (Henri Reynders), who protected 300-400 Jews, most of whom were children; and Muslim-Albanian families who saved Jews.

Heroism in Unjust Times is presented in partnership with the Sousa Mendes Foundation, Yad Vashem, Darrell English, Julie Lanoie, Joan Lanoie, Jennie Blair, Mona Pearl Treyball, Walt Bannon and Jean-Claude van Itallie. Additional lenders include Ruth Hymans Charchat, Rudolph and Janet de Winter, Marilyn Eisenbruch Jacques, Monique Rubens Krohn, Edith Kubicek, Sebastian Mendes, Kathleen Rand, Benjamin Schlesinger and Georgette Lorié Standish.

This exhibit has been made possible with the generous support of Kennebec Savings Bank.  Kennebec Savings Bank fosters a culture of giving through its Community Dividends Program that supports over 300 local organizations across the 30 communities they serve. To learn more about Kennebec Savings Bank, visit them online at kennebecsavings.bank.

There is no admission to visit the Michael Klahr Center and the exhibit will be open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and on weekends and evenings by appointment. For more information call (207) 621-3530. The Center also includes a permanent exhibit about Michael Klahr, a hidden child who survived the Holocaust and the 80-minute multimedia presentation Were the House Still Standing: Maine Survivors and Liberators Remember the Holocaust. For more information on the Michael Klahr Center and the programs of the HHRC, visit hhrcmaine.org.

Established in 2010, the Sousa Mendes Foundation is dedicated to honoring the memory of Aristides de Sousa Mendes and to teaching the importance of moral courage in a civilized world.  www.sousamendesfoundation.org

For more information, please contact: Jordan Bannister, (207) 621-3530 or jordan.bannister@maine.edu.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 17, 2017

HOLOCAUST RESCUER ARISTIDES DE SOUSA MENDES TO BE HONORED IN LEXINGTON, KY ON THE OCCASION OF HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

Community members are invited to a film screening of the award-winning docudrama Disobedience: The Sousa Mendes Story on Monday, April 24, 2017 at 7:30 p.m. at the Kentucky Theater, 214 E. Main Street, Lexington, KY, on the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Tickets are $10 (suggested donation) and are available at the door.

The film tells the dramatic true story of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese consul stationed in Bordeaux, France during World War II. When the Nazis invaded in 1940, Sousa Mendes granted Portuguese visas to thousands of refugees, against the strict orders of his government, in a feat described by historian Yehuda Bauer as “perhaps the largest rescue action by a single individual during the Holocaust.”  As a result of his act of conscience, Sousa Mendes was punished by his government for “disobedience,” stripped of his position, and blacklisted.  He died in 1954 in poverty and disgrace.

The film screening will be followed by a brief testimonial by Lexington resident Dr. Michael Rie, the grandson of Sousa Mendes visa recipients.  “Tolerance for diversity is an American virtue and strength to be remembered by all,” said Rie. “My family members give communal thanks for our existence to the humanitarian courage and decency of Aristides de Sousa Mendes,” he added.  Famous Sousa Mendes visa recipients include Hans and Margret Rey, authors of Curious George, and the artist Salvador Dali.  But most visa recipients were ordinary families escaping the horrors of the Nazi war machine.

In 1966, Sousa Mendes was posthumously recognized as a “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust authority.  The Portuguese government eventually honored Sousa Mendes in the 1980’s, as a result of pressure from the US government.  Earlier this month, the Portuguese President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, bestowed a posthumous high honor on Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Grand Cross of the Order of Liberty.

The Lexington event is co-sponsored by Dr. Rie, the Jewish Federation of the Bluegrass, the Moosnick Lectureship of the Lexington Theological Seminary and Transylvania University, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lexington.  All proceeds will benefit the Sousa Mendes Foundation, a charitable 501(c)3 non-profit organization.  Established in 2010, the Foundation is dedicated to honoring the memory of Aristides de Sousa Mendes and to teaching the importance of moral courage in a civilized world.  www.sousamendesfoundation.org

For more information, please contact: Robert Jacobvitz, (877) 797-9759 or robert@sousamendesfoundation.org.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 3, 2017

PORTUGAL HONORS ARISTIDES DE SOUSA MENDES

Portugal’s President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa bestowed Portugal’s highest honor, the Grand Cross of the Order of Liberty, on Aristides de Sousa Mendes in a ceremony today at the Sousa Mendes family home, Casa do Passal, in Cabanas de Viriato, Portugal. Receiving the award on behalf of the Sousa Mendes family was Gerald Mendes, grandson of Aristides de Sousa Mendes.

President Rebelo de Sousa used the occasion to remind the assembled gathering of the relevance of Sousa Mendes’s action to today’s world.  “This is a very special honor, as it is being given at a time in which tragedies of new wars and persecutions bring painful images of rootless people looking for a land of freedom, representing for Europe the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War,” Rebelo de Sousa said.

Sousa Mendes’s first posthumous decoration in Portugal was as Officer of the Order of Liberty, bestowed in October of 1986 by then-President Mario Soares, as a result of a long and concerted campaign by the US-based International Committee to Commemorate Dr. Aristides de Sousa Mendes. Later, during the National Homage held in March 1995, Portugal issued a postage stamp for Sousa Mendes, and Soares bestowed upon him the Grand Cross of the Order of Christ.

President Rebelo de Sousa became inspired to bestow this new award upon meeting the Sousa Mendes Foundation’s delegation during the June-July 2016 “Journey on the Road to Freedom” tour.  On that occasion, he received the group — made up of Sousa Mendes visa recipients, descendants of visa recipients, members of the Sousa Mendes family and Holocaust educators — at the Belem Palace in Lisbon.

He met with the Sousa Mendes Foundation group again in New York at the Center for Jewish History, on September 22, 2016.  It was on that occasion that he announced his intention to bestow a high honor upon Sousa Mendes. The date of April 3rd was chosen for the ceremony as the anniversary of the death of Aristides de Sousa Mendes in 1954.

“There are no homage and posthumous decorations that give back all the life destroyed, all the injustice committed, all persecution inexorably maintained,” President Rebelo de Sousa remarked. “There are never complete reparations, but there are acknowledgments of guilt, there are exemplary evocations for the past, urgent warnings for the present, inevitable lessons for the future,” he added.

For a video of the President’s speech (in Portuguese), go here:  http://www.presidencia.pt/?idc=10&idi=125357

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 9, 2017

For media inquiries contact:
Lisa Safier, Museum of Jewish Heritage
communications@mjhnyc.org
646-437-4336

CALL TO ACTION TO LAWMAKERS AND CITIZENS

New York. – In a powerful statement issued by an array of Holocaust institutions, scholars and educators from around the world and spearheaded by the Sousa Mendes Foundation, an alarm is being sounded on the widely circulating reports that US President Trump is planning to eliminate the office to monitor and combat anti-Semitism at the United States Department of State. This is an office established by Congress and headed by a Special Envoy. The statement is as follows:

The undersigned Holocaust remembrance organizations, educators, and historians ask you to speak out and take action against hatred.

 

We are alarmed by reports that the President plans to defund the US State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, an office that tracks and counteracts anti-Semitism abroad.  Ira Forman, the most recent Special Envoy in charge of that office, was our voice to a world in the throes of xenophobia and racism.  He recently wrote, “Anti-Semitism is not only a Jewish problem; Jew-hatred — like other forms of religious and ethnic prejudice — is a threat to the very foundations of liberal democracies.”   

 

We urge the US government to maintain and strengthen the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism and to create a new agency to address this urgent issue domestically.  The need becomes clearer by the day as hatred, like a tidal wave, sweeps across the nation.  Cemeteries, synagogues, churches and mosques are being desecrated.  Jewish Community Centers and schools are targets of bomb threats and shootings. Swastikas and white supremacist threats appear on walls and on social media.  Now is the time to increase vigilance, not roll it back.

 

ACT NOW.  Call Your Representatives in Congress and the Senate.

Ask them to preserve the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism and to create such an office to fight domestic anti-Semitism as well. 

Senate: goo.gl/u9SBbX     Congress:  goo.gl/paBNA

 

Additional Actions You Can Take

Call your state representatives and ask them to fund educational programs designed to stop hatred and bullying — programs that build character and promote civics. Get involved with your school boards and interfaith groups.  Talk to your neighbors.  Rally in your town to promote tolerance and support victims of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, sexism and discrimination in all its forms.

This statement is co-authored by members of the Association of Holocaust Organizations, a network dedicated to the advancement of Holocaust education, remembrance and research, and is affirmed by the following institutions and individuals: