About the Family

The BROY children received visas from Aristides de Sousa Mendes in Bordeaux on June 11, 1940.

Charles BROY was the US Consul stationed in Brussels, Belgium. He sent his children to Arcachon, France for their safety after the Germans bombed Belgium. In June 1940 he instructed them to go to Estoril, for which they needed the Portuguese transit visas provided by Sousa Mendes. The children then flew to Madrid, where Charles picked them up, and they drove back through occupied France to Brussels. They remained in their apartment for a time, but then the Germans installed anti-aircraft guns on the roof and so they moved to the American Embassy residences, which happened to be next to the Luftwaffe offices. The father would play BBC radio very loud to annoy the German officers. As a diplomat family they were fairly safe, the US had not yet entered the war. When relations between the US and Germany broke down, they returned to Portugal to sail back on the SS West Point.

They lived in Arlington, Virginia, and Charles was badly injured in an accident when a train hit a car he was traveling in. He died in September 1943 as a result of complications from the accident.