Portugal, the Consuls, and the Jewish Refugees ... - Yad Vashem

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Disregarding Orders – A Widespread PhenomenonFearing that Jews who had entered illegally in the period from June toSeptember 1940 would remain in the country, the Portuguese governmentbegan to create difficulties for Jews in France to come to Portugal, even forthose holding visas to other countries. At the end of 1940, after the French-German border agreements and given the successful smuggling of Jews outof Portugal by Jewish organizations, the question of the entry of Jews revertedto what it had been before the summer of 1940. That is, the parameters of thepolicy of entry for foreigners established in 1938 and radicalized with thecircular of November 14, 1939, permitting transit but not residence in Portugal,were once again strictly enforced. The Jewish organizations contributed to thistendency by guaranteeing the expenses of the residence and transportation ofJews who were in France, Italy, and Hungary and who had visas for othercountries. 78In May 1940, the MNE refused a tourist visa requested by the Milan consulatefor the Rumanian student Saul Steinberg. It alleged that “Rumania wasstruggling with the serious problem which it is trying hard to solve, to free itselfof an undesirable, numerous and increasing population of Jewish race.” 79 The78“On December 17, 1940, we received for the first time permission for about200 people who came to Portugal in transit. This began the second period ofsix months. People were able to come to Portugal at that time having theirdestination visa and transit visa in perfect order. This was a great success forus and during this period from January to July 1941, we sent over 2856people of whom 1282 were sent directly from Portugal and the remaining1574 from France and other European countries.” Report of the HIAS-ICAActivities in Lisbon, July 1, 1940 ― December 18, 1941, HIAS-HICEMArchives, series I ― reel 30.79Vaz da Cunha, General Director of Economic and Consular Affairs of theMNE to the director of the PVDE, Lisbon May 11, 1940, AMNE, 2o. P. P. A-44, M-152. Rumania, which, from the end of the 1930s, publicized its intentionof diminishing its Jewish population, was enlarged after World War I with theterritories annexed from Transylvania and Bessarabia, paradoxically causedopposite results because this antisemitism was assimilated by the consularrepresentations in Bucarest. One of the clearest examples is the documentsent by the first secretary of the Brazilian legation, Labianno Salgado dosSantos to Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1938. See Maria Luiza TucciCarneiro, O Anti-Semitismo na Era Vargas, São Paulo, Brasiliense, 1988, pp.314-417.__________________________________________________________________________26/31Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies
problems of the honorary consul of Milan, Giuseppe Agenore Magno, 80 beganon September 6, when the plane, carrying Saul Steinberg with a visa grantedby the consul on August 29, landed at the airport in Sintra. The Jewishstudent, whose visa had been refused four months before, was forbiddenentry to Portugal and forced to return on the same plane. 81 This episodecoincided with the initial procedure of Sousa Mendes, described above,regarding the Wiznitzer couple and Eduardo Neira Laporte. In bothcircumstances it turns out that the consuls granted visas after these wererefused by the MNE.The Steinberg case and other similar ones led to the discharge of GiuseppeAgenore Magno from his consular functions and his substitution by a viceconsul,82 who never took up the post. What is surprising in this case, asopposed to that of Sousa Mendes, is that Agenore Magno, in spite of beingdischarged, continued to run the consulate till the day of his death onFebruary 5, 1947. 83 With his morale and self-respect shaken, his new statusenabled him to maintain appearances in spite of perceiving himself as“castrated” as regards the conferring of visas.The discharge was seen by Consul Alfredo Casanova of Genoa, Magno’ssuperior in Italy, as an expression of human injustice. Casanova criticizedSalazar for reacting negatively to the consular protection granted to Jews,defending them with empathy in personal letters he addressed to the dictator.80Count Giuseppe Agneore Magno was the scion of a Neapolitan aristocraticfamily. He served as head of the Italian Immigration Service in Buenos Airesin the first decades of the century and was recommended as honorary consulof Portugal in Milan,by his friend, Augusto de Castro, at the time Portugal’sambassador in Rome. He was appointed in 1934. Magno, the Lusophile, knewthe Portuguese language well and had even translated Portuguese literatureinto Italian, including works of Augusto de Castro. Rui Afonso, “CountGiuseppe Agenore Magno,” Portuguese Studies Review, vol. V, no.1, Spring-Summer 1966, pp. 12-22.81Letter of the PVDE to Vaz da Cunha, AMNE, 2o. P. P. A-44, M-152.82Section of the Consular Administration, January 30, 1941, AMNE, RPA 103.The discharge decree was signed by the Secretary of the Presidency of theRepublic, Dossier G. A. Magno no. 3459.83Rui Afonso explains this sui generis phenomenon as the result of theappeals to Salazar by Alfredo Casanova, consul in Genova and superior toAgenore Magno, and by the eventual intervention of Augusto de Castro. Inregard to Augusto de Castro, there are no documents proving that he helpedMagno.__________________________________________________________________________27/31Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies
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Portugal, the Consuls, and the Jewish Refugees ... - Yad Vashem

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