About the Family

The BOJKO family received visas numbered 1966, 1967 and 1968 from Aristides de Sousa Mendes in Bordeaux on June 17, 1940.

They crossed into Portugal and traveled from Lisbon to Vera Cruz, Mexico on the Quanza in August 1940.

They were denied permission to disembark, along with dozens of other passengers, and Mexican authorities ordered the ship to return to Europe. The ship then proceeded to Norfolk, Virginia to refuel, and there, thanks to the intervention of Eleanor Roosevelt and others, the BOJKO family and the other stranded passengers were admitted to the United States as political refugees in September of 1940 after six weeks at sea.