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Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (2 January 1783 – 22 July 1853) was a Danish painter. He was born in Blåkrog in the Duchy of Schleswig (now in Aabenraa Municipality, in the southern part of Jutland in Denmark). He went on to lay the foundation for the period of art known as the Golden Age of Danish Painting, and is referred to as the "Father of Danish painting".

Growing up and early training

On 2 January 1783, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg was born in Blåkrog in the Duchy of Schleswig (now in Aabenraa Municipality, in the southern part of Jutland in Denmark), to Henrik Vilhelm Eckersberg, a painter and carpenter, and Ingeborg Nielsdatter. In 1786 the family moved to Blans, a village near the Alssund, where he enjoyed drawing pictures of the surrounding countryside, and taking sailing tours in his father's boat. After confirmation he began his training as a painter under church and portrait painter Jes Jessen of Aabenraa (1797–1800). He continued his training at age 17 under Josiah Jacob Jessen in Flensborg, where he became an apprentice in May 1800. He, however, had his sights set on being accepted at the Royal Danish Academy of Art (Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi) in Copenhagen.

Training at the Academy

Still under apprenticeship, Eckersberg produced proficient drawings and paintings. Having amassed some money, including financial support from local well-wishers, he arrived at Copenhagen's Tollbooth on 23 May 1803. He was accepted into the Academy without payment in 1803, where he studied with Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard, among others.

He made good progress, painting historical paintings, portraits and landscapes. However, friction between him and Abildgaard impeded his advancement, and he did not win the Academy's big gold medal until 1809, after Abildgaard's death. He also worked to earn living money as a hand labourer, and he made drawings for copperplate etchings.

Although he received promise of a travel stipend in conjunction with the gold medal, the actual funds would not be made available until 1812. On 1 July 1810, he married E. Christine Rebecca Hyssing against his wishes, in order to 'legitimize' a son, Erling Carl Vilhelm Eckersberg, who had been born to her. Erling eventually followed in his father's footsteps with an academy education, and a career as a copperplate engraver.

Student travels

Eager to travel, not only on account of his desire to stretch his artistic skills and knowledge, but also in order to escape the reality of his marriage, he made other arrangements for the financial support needed that would allow him to travel. On 3 July, a few days after the wedding, Eckersberg began his travels out of the country. Along with Tønnes Christian Bruun de Neergaard, writer, enthusiastic art lover and financial supporter, he made his way through Germany to Paris. Here he studied under neoclassicist Jacques-Louis David from 1811 to 1812. He improved his skills in painting the human form, and followed his teacher's admonition to paint after Nature and the Antique in order to find Truth. It was here that he developed a lifelong friendship with his Paris roommate and fellow artist Jens Peter Møller, and with engraver Johan Frederik Clemens, Jens Juel's collaborator. After two years he travelled further via Florence to Rome where he continued his studies between 1813 and 1816. He worked on improving his skills as a history painter, and enjoyed painting smaller studies of the local life and area. He lived there three years among a large group of artists, with Bertel Thorvaldsen as the cultural head. Eckersberg and Thorvaldsen developed a close lasting relationship, and the master served the younger Eckersberg as both loyal friend and advisor. Eckersberg painted one of his best portraits, a portrait of Thorvaldsen, in Rome in 1814, which was donated to the Academy of Art. Life in Rome agreed with him, and he was greatly affected by the bright southern light he experienced there. He produced a large body of work during those years, including a number of exceptional landscape studies.

His divorce from Hyssing was finalized during his stay out of the country, and on 2 August 1816 he had returned to Denmark.

An academic career
Shortly after his return to Denmark Eckersberg arranged for his admission into the Academy, and received as the subject of his admissions painting the Norse legend, the Death of Baldur. On 8 February 1817 he wed Elisabeth Cathrine Julie Juel, daughter of Jens Juel, portrait painter and professor at the Academy. They had two sons and four daughters before her death in 1827.

He was admitted as a member of the Academy in October 1817, and was named professor there in 1818, having assumed the vacant professorship left after the death of Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard in 1809. The Academy had waited to fill the position until Eckersberg returned to Denmark from his student travels, while delaying the attempts by Abildgaard's disciple, Christian Fædder Høyer, and by Christian Gotlieb Kratzenstein-Stub and J. L. Lund to seek the same position. Finally the Academy awarded the position not only to Eckersberg, but also to Lund.

A year after the death of his wife Elisabeth in 1827, he married her sister Susanne Henriette Emilie Juel, with whom he also had several children.

He was director of the Academy from 1827 to 1829. His eyesight failed him in later life and he had to give up painting. He died in Copenhagen of cholera on 22 July 1853 during the great epidemic. He is buried in Copenhagen's Assistens Cemetery.

Works

Eckersberg was commissioned to do a number of historical paintings for Christiansborg Palace, as well as altarpieces. His best known works are portraits of the Copenhagen middle class, such as the "Nathanson family picture" (Det Nathansonske Familiebillede), 1818, and the official portrait of Frederick VI (Frederik VI). In spite of his abilities in this genre, his career in portraiture was short-lived, due to the competition he received from then popular Christian Albrecht Jensen.

Marine paintings were another genre he developed with great interest. He had a passion for ships, and sailed around the Skagerrak, the Kattegat, the North Sea, and as far as the English Channel at the age of 56. The experience of sailing out on the open seas gave new dimension to his marine paintings, which until that point tended to be calm depictions. Now there was more attention given to movement and to waves.

The Admiralty in 1819 had granted him free access to the Copenhagen Naval Station (Holmen), thus giving him occasion to view the many ships – a favorite motive in his paintings. During summer, the sailors would practice swimming here – of course they swam naked. This gave Eckersberg a unique opportunity to watch men in a state of complete undress and to make an artistic evaluation of their physical build. He could thus here select the models whom he needed for his paintings with motives from Greek or Roman antiquity.

His biggest contribution to painting was through his professorship at the Academy. He revitalized teaching by taking students out into the field, where they were challenged to do studies from nature. In this way it was he who introduced direct study from nature into Danish art. He also encouraged his students to develop their individual strengths, thus creating unique styles. He developed an increasing interest in perspective on account of his marine paintings. He wrote a dissertation on the subject called Linear perspective used in the art of painting (Linearperspektiven, anvendt paa Malerkunsten) in 1841, and taught classes on the subject at the Academy. He made a small number of etchings that combine observations of daily life with classical, harmonious principles of composition. This led the way to the characteristic manner in which Golden Age painters portrayed common, everyday life.

There is a self-portrait from 1803, a bust of him by Thorvaldsen from 1816 and a portrait by Marstrand from 1836.

Pupils

Among his students were:

 * Wilhelm Bendz
 * Ditlev Blunck
 * Carl Dahl
 * Christen Dalsgaard
 * Anton Dorph
 * Dankvart Dreyer
 * Heinrich Eddelien
 * Julius Exner
 * Lorenz Frølich
 * Peter Gemzøe
 * Johan Vilhelm Gertner
 * Hans Jørgen Hammer
 * Constantin Hansen
 * Frederik Theodor Kloss
 * Albert Küchler
 * Christen Købke
 * Vilhelm Kyhn
 * Emanuel Larsen
 * Christine Løvmand
 * Wilhelm Marstrand
 * Anton Melbye
 * Adam August Müller
 * Emil Normann
 * Fritz Petzholdt
 * Jørgen Roed
 * Martinus Rørbye
 * Carl Frederik Sørensen
 * Adolph Friedrich Vollmer

title: Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg


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King Edward VI School, Southampton

King Edward VI School (also known as King Edward's, or KES) is a selective co-educational private school founded in Southampton, England, in 1553.

The school was founded at the request of William Capon, who bequeathed money in his will for a grammar school for the poor. King Edward VI signed the necessary Royal Charter in 1553 and the school opened in 1554. King Edward's became an independent school in 1978 and accepted girls into the sixth form in 1983. It became a fully co-educational school in 1994. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, and is a registered charity. The school roll is approximately 950 pupils.

The current building was designed by the English architect Ernest Berry Webber in the early 1930s.

History
King Edward's was founded in 1553 when King Edward VI signed the necessary Royal Charter for a school to be built out of the proceeds of the will of William Capon, who had died in 1550 and bequeathed money for a grammar school for the poor. The school opened in 1554; it became an independent school in 1978, and accepted girls into the sixth form in 1983. It became a fully co-educational school in 1994. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference.

The current building was designed by the English architect Ernest Berry Webber in the early 1930s. Webber was a prolific designer of public buildings, including the civic centres at Southampton, Dagenham, and Hammersmith.

Traditions and day-to-day life

The school motto is Dieu et mon droict (French for God and my right, referring to the monarch's divine right to govern) and is generally used as the motto of the British monarch. Originally it was spelled Dieut et mon droict, the Early Modern French spelling, but later the 't' in "Dieut" was dropped in accordance with present French orthography. In the 1970s the motto was 'Pax Huic Domui', 'Peace to this House' (traditionally the words a priest says when visiting a sick person). The school hymn is Our God, Our Help in Ages Past, written by a famous former pupil, Isaac Watts. The clock tower at the Civic Centre, Southampton plays the same tune at 4, 8, and 12 o'clock, after it has chimed the hour.

In 2011, 100% of pupils achieved 5+ A*-C GCSEs (or equivalent) including English and maths, with 85% achieving all English Baccalaureate subjects. The average fifth year student was entered for 11.2 qualifications.

A newsletter, KonnEctionS, is published each term and stresses the highlights and achievements of the school and its members that have occurred in the previous four months. An online bulletin is also sent to parents using the e-portal on a regular basis through each term to ensure that events are publicised. The website also publishes news about achievements and events and is updated weekly. The school publishes two formal reports. The Annual Review provides a detailed summary of the achievements of the school. A copy is given to all parents in September after Speech Day. Sotoniensis is an annual publication of the school's main social, charitable and arts events. Published in October, it aims to provide a record of all that has taken place in the previous year, and has articles covering trips, expeditions, sports results, theatre productions, etc. The Edwardian is a biannual publication for and about alumni of King Edward's (known as Edwardians, or OEs).

As well as a main playing field, and an area of artificial turf large enough to accommodate 12 tennis courts, King Edward's owns 33 acre of sports grounds called Wellington on the edge of Southampton, where there is a water based astro pitch, along with netball courts, tennis courts, and a large number of grass pitches.

Old Edwardians

 * Edward Penley Abraham, biochemist
 * Alan F. Alford, author
 * Thomas George Adames Baker, clergyman
 * Iain Brunnschweiler, cricketer
 * Robert Bulling, Clerk of the Privy Council
 * William Capon, rector and master of Jesus College, Cambridge
 * Alec Campbell (footballer)
 * James Cobban, educator
 * George Bernard Cronshaw, clergyman
 * Ian Dunt, journalist
 * Justin Edwards, actor
 * John Francis (English cricketer)
 * Simon Francis (cricketer)
 * Chris Grigg, chief executive of British Land
 * Frederick Gross, cricketer
 * Stephen Hammond, MP for Wimbledon
 * Henry Robinson Hartley, philanthropist
 * John Heath, entomologist
 * Roger Helmer, UK Independence Party MEP
 * James Henry Hurdis, artist
 * Arthur Lake, Bishop of Bath and Wells
 * Thomas Lake, politician
 * Michael Langrish, bishop
 * Michael Lewis (bishop)
 * Eric Meadus, painter
 * Gordon Messenger, military
 * Nick Middleton, geographer
 * Basil Mitchell (academic)
 * Hugh Mitchell, actor
 * Rob Moore (field hockey player)
 * John Muddiman, scholar
 * Darren Naish, palaeontologist
 * Dennis Nineham, scholar
 * George Penny, 1st Viscount Marchwood, politician
 * Iain Percy, Olympic sailor
 * Paul O'Prey, scholar
 * Joshua Sylvester, poet
 * Isaac Watts, minister and hymnist
 * Hugh Whitemore, playwright/screenwriter
 * Gilbert Whitley, zoologist
 * Justin Young, musician

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: King Edward VI School, Southampton


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1993 Spanish general election

The 1993 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 6 June 1993, to elect the 5th Cortes Generales of the Kingdom of Spain. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 256 seats in the Senate.

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party under Felipe González achieved the largest number of votes and seats for the fourth consecutive time, though it lost the absolute majority it had held in both chambers of the Cortes since 1982. In contrast, José María Aznar's People's Party won a large share of the vote, thus increasing their seats in both the Congress and the Senate and consolidating its position as the main opposition party. For the first time since 1979, the election brought in a hung parliament, forcing the governing PSOE to seek the support of nationalist groups in order to renew its mandate and secure a fourth term in government.

In the aftermath of the election, the PSOE saw itself under increased pressure due both to political instability as a result of its low majority (relying on increasingly unstable pacts with Convergence and Union to pass its legislation) and of the uncovering of numerous cases of corruption within the government itself. The pact with CiU would end in the fall of 1995, forcing González to call early elections 15 months before their scheduled date, which would see the opposition People's Party win for the first time.

Electoral system
The Spanish Cortes Generales were envisaged as an imperfect bicameral system. The Congress of Deputies had greater legislative power than the Senate, having the ability to vote confidence in or withdraw it from a prime minister and to override Senate vetoes by an absolute majority of votes. Nonetheless, the Senate possessed a few exclusive (yet limited in number) functions—such as its role in constitutional amendment—which were not subject to the Congress' override. Voting for the Cortes Generales was on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprised all nationals over 18 years of age and in full enjoyment of their political rights.

For the Congress of Deputies, 348 seats were elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with an electoral threshold of three percent of valid votes—which included blank ballots—being applied in each constituency. Seats were allocated to constituencies, corresponding to the provinces of Spain, with each being allocated an initial minimum of two seats and the remaining 248 being distributed in proportion to their populations. Ceuta and Melilla were allocated the two remaining seats, which were elected using plurality voting. The use of the electoral method resulted in an effective threshold based on the district magnitude and the distribution of votes among candidacies.

As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Congress multi-member constituency was entitled the following seats:

For the Senate, 208 seats were elected using an open list partial block voting system, with electors voting for individual candidates instead of parties. In constituencies electing four seats, electors could vote for up to three candidates; in those with two or three seats, for up to two candidates; and for one candidate in single-member districts. Each of the 47 peninsular provinces was allocated four seats, whereas for insular provinces, such as the Balearic and Canary Islands, districts were the islands themselves, with the larger—Majorca, Gran Canaria and Tenerife—being allocated three seats each, and the smaller—Menorca, Ibiza–Formentera, Fuerteventura, La Gomera, El Hierro, Lanzarote and La Palma—one each. Ceuta and Melilla elected two seats each. Additionally, autonomous communities could appoint at least one senator each and were entitled to one additional senator per each million inhabitants.

Election date
The term of each chamber of the Cortes Generales—the Congress and the Senate—expired four years from the date of their previous election, unless they were dissolved earlier. The election decree was required to be issued no later than the twenty-fifth day prior to the date of expiry of parliament and published on the following day in the Official State Gazette (BOE), with election day taking place between the fifty-fourth and the sixtieth day from publication. The previous election was held on 29 October 1989, which meant that the legislature's term would expire on 29 October 1993. The election decree was required to be published in the BOE no later than 5 October 1993, with the election taking place on the sixtieth day from publication, setting the latest possible election date for the Cortes Generales on Saturday, 4 December 1993.

The prime minister had the prerogative to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election, provided that no motion of no confidence was in process, no state of emergency was in force and that dissolution did not occur before one year had elapsed since the previous one. Additionally, both chambers were to be dissolved and a new election called if an investiture process failed to elect a prime minister within a two-month period from the first ballot. Barred this exception, there was no constitutional requirement for simultaneous elections for the Congress and the Senate. Still, as of 2024 there has been no precedent of separate elections taking place under the 1978 Constitution.

The Cortes Generales were officially dissolved on 13 April 1993 after the publication of the dissolution decree in the BOE, setting the election date for 6 June and scheduling for both chambers to reconvene on 29 June.

Parliamentary composition
The tables below show the composition of the parliamentary groups in both chambers at the time of dissolution.

Parties and candidates
The electoral law allowed for parties and federations registered in the interior ministry, coalitions and groupings of electors to present lists of candidates. Parties and federations intending to form a coalition ahead of an election were required to inform the relevant Electoral Commission within ten days of the election call, whereas groupings of electors needed to secure the signature of at least one percent of the electorate in the constituencies for which they sought election, disallowing electors from signing for more than one list of candidates.

Below is a list of the main parties and electoral alliances which contested the election:

Election debates

 * Opinion polls

title: 1993 Spanish general election


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Aristides de Sousa Mendes

Aristides de Sousa Mendes do Amaral e Abranches (July 19, 1885 – April 3, 1954)  was a Portuguese  consul during World War II.

As the Portuguese consul-general in the French city of Bordeaux, he defied the orders of António de Oliveira Salazar's Estado Novo regime, issuing visas and passports to an undetermined number of refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, including Jews. For this, Sousa Mendes was punished by the Salazar regime with one year of inactivity with the right to one half of his rank's pay, being obliged subsequently to be retired. However, he ended up never being expelled from the foreign service nor forced to retire and he received a full consul salary until his death in 1954. One of Sousa Mendes most sympathetic biographers, Rui Afonso, has reckoned that he continued to receive a salary at least three times that of a teacher.

Sousa Mendes was vindicated in 1988, more than a decade after the Carnation Revolution, which toppled the Estado Novo.

The number of visas issued by Sousa Mendes is disputed. Yad Vashem historian Avraham Milgram thinks that it was probably Harry Ezratty who was the first to mention in an article published in 1964 that Sousa Mendes had saved 30,000 refugees, of which 10,000 were Jews, a number which has since been repeated automatically by journalists and academics. Milgram says that Ezratty, imprudently, took the total number of Jewish refugees who passed through Portugal and ascribed it to the work of Aristides de Sousa Mendes. According to Milgram “the discrepancy between the reality and the myth of the number of visas granted by Sousa Mendes is great”. A similar opinion is shared by British historian Neill Lochery, by the Portuguese ambassador João Hall Themido, by the Portuguese Ambassador Carlos Fernandes and by the Portuguese historian José Hermano Saraiva. On the other hand, French writer, Eric Lebreton argued that “Milgram did not account for the visas that were delivered in Bayonne, Hendaye and Toulouse”. In 2015, Olivia Mattis, musicologist and Board President of the Sousa Mendes Foundation in the United States, published the findings of the Sousa Mendes Foundation stating that "tens of thousands" of visa recipients is a figure in the correct order of magnitude.

For his efforts to save Jewish refugees, Sousa Mendes was recognized by Israel as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, the first diplomat to be so honoured, in 1966.

Portuguese diplomats such as Ambassador João Hall Themido and Ambassador Carlos Fernandes have argued that Sousa Mendes actions have been inflated and twisted in order to attack Salazar. Similar opinion was voiced by historian Tom Gallagher who argues that evidence that Sousa Mendes efforts were especially directed towards fleeing Jews is also speculative. British, Americans and Portuguese, often people with means, figured prominently as recipients of visas. Gallagher thinks that the disproportionate attention given to Sousa Mendes suggests that wartime history is being used as a political weapon in contemporary Portugal.

On 9 June 2020, Portugal granted official recognition to Sousa Mendes. Parliament decided a monument in the National Pantheon should bear his name. In 2017, in the Portuguese border town of Vilar Formoso, a memorial museum was opened, known as Vilar Formoso Fronteira da Paz (Frontier of Peace) recording the experiences of refugees entering Portugal, many of whom had been given visas by Sousa Mendes.

Early life
Aristides de Sousa Mendes was born in Cabanas de Viriato, in Carregal do Sal, in the district of Viseu, Centro Region of Portugal, on July 19, 1885, shortly after midnight. His twin brother César, born a few minutes earlier, had a July 18 birthday. Their ancestry included a notable aristocratic line: their mother, Maria Angelina Coelho Ribeiro, was a maternal illegitimate granddaughter of the 2nd Viscount of Midões, a lower rural aristocracy title. Their father, José de Sousa Mendes, was a judge on the Coimbra Court of Appeals. César served as Foreign Minister in 1932, in the early days of António de Oliveira Salazar's regime. Their younger brother, Jose Paulo, became a naval officer. Sousa Mendes and his twin studied law at the University of Coimbra, and each obtained his degree in 1908. In that same year, Sousa Mendes married his childhood sweetheart, Maria Angelina Coelho de Sousa (born August 20, 1888). They eventually had fourteen children, born in the various countries in which he served. Shortly after his marriage, Sousa Mendes began the consular officer career that would take him and his family around the world. Early in his career, he served in Demerara, Zanzibar, Brazil, Spain, the United States, and Belgium.

In August 1919, while posted in Brazil, he was "temporarily suspended by the Foreign Ministry, which regarded him as hostile to the republican regime." Subsequently, "he had financial problems and was forced to take out a loan in order to provide for his family needs." He returned home to Portugal where his son Pedro Nuno was born in Coimbra in April 1920.

In 1921, Sousa Mendes was assigned to the Portuguese consulate in San Francisco, and two more of his children were born there.

In 1923, he angered some members of the Portuguese-American community because of his insistence that the Oakland's brotherhood of the Cult of the Holy Spirit should make a contribution to a Brazilian charity. Sousa Mendes decided to publish his arguments in local newspapers accusing the members of the brotherhood of lack of patriotism and disrespect for Portugal sparkling a dispute where both sides used the local press to attack each another. Sousa Mendes was instructed by the Foreign Office to stop insisting on something that was not part of his work as a consul and that the local Portuguese community was free to choose to which charities they wished to support. But Sousa Mendes ignored the orders and kept on publishing articles criticizing the members of the brotherhood and also banned the Portuguese notaries from performing any further services to the consulate. Ultimately, the conflict led to the US Department of State cancelling his consular exequatur and ask the Portuguese Government to replace Sousa Mendes as consul. While in San Francisco, Sousa Mendes helped establish a Portuguese Studies program at the University of California at Berkeley.

In May 1926, a coup d'état replaced the republic in Portugal with a military dictatorship, a regime that according to Sousa Mendes "had been greeted with delight" in Portugal. He supported the new regime at first and his career prospects improved. In March 1927, Sousa Mendes was assigned to serve as the Consul in Vigo in Spain, where he helped the military dictatorship neutralize political refugees.

In 1929 he was sent to Antwerp, Belgium to serve as Dean of the Consular Corps.

The year of 1934 was a tragic year for the Sousa Mendes family with the loss of two of their children: Raquel, barely one year old, and Manuel, who had just graduated from the University of Louvain.

In 1935 during the Brussels World Fair Sousa Mendes decided to publicly criticize the Portuguese Government for the low level of representation in the world fair. The Minister Armindo Monteiro considered this to be a serious lack of discipline and Sousa Mendes was again object of disciplinary proceedings that ended up with him being dismissed from the board of The House of Portugal in Antwerp. In that same year, Sousa Mendes was also investigated for tardiness in the transferring of consular funds to the Foreign Office in Lisbon and he had to ask the support of his brother César to provide him with the money needed to settle the lack of funds.

In 1938, he was assigned to the post of Consul-General of Bordeaux, France, with jurisdiction over the whole of the Southwest of France.

World War II and Circular 14
In 1932, the Portuguese dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar began, and by 1933, the secret police, the Surveillance and State Defense Police, PVDE, had been created. According to historian Avraham Milgram, by 1938, Salazar "knew the Nazis' approach to the 'Jewish question'. From fears that aliens might undermine the regime, entry to Portugal was severely limited. Toward this end, the apparatus of the PVDE was extended with its International Department given greater control over border patrol and the entry of aliens. Presumably, most aliens wishing to enter Portugal at that time were Jews." Portugal during World War II, like its European counterparts, adopted tighter immigration policies, preventing refugees from settling in the country. Circular 10, of 28 October 1938, addressed to consular representatives, deemed that settling was forbidden to Jews, allowing entrance only on a tourist visa for thirty days.

On 9 November 1938, the Nazi government of Germany began open war against its Jewish citizens with the pogrom known as Kristallnacht, with over a thousand synagogues damaged or destroyed, thousands of Jewish businesses damaged, 30,000 Jews arrested and at least 91 Jews murdered. On 1 September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, home at that time to the largest Jewish community in the world, precipitating the start of World War II. Salazar reacted by sending a telegram to the Portuguese Embassy in Berlin ordering that it should be made clear to the German Reich that Portuguese law did not allow any distinction based on race, and therefore Portuguese Jewish citizens could not be discriminated against.

The German invasion of Poland led France and the United Kingdom to declare war on Germany. The number of refugees trying to make use of Portugal's neutrality as an escape route increased, and between the months of September and December approximately 9,000 refugees entered Portugal. Passport forgery and false statements were common. The regime felt the need for tighter control. By 1939, the police had already dismantled several criminal networks responsible for passport forgery and several consuls had been expelled from service for falsifying passports.

On 11 November 1939, the Portuguese government sent Circular 14 to all Portuguese consuls throughout Europe, stating the categories of war refugees whom the PVDE considered to be "inconvenient or dangerous." The Dispatch allowed consuls to continue granting Portuguese transit visas, but established that in the case of "Foreigners of indefinite or contested nationality, the Stateless, Russian Citizens, Holders of a Nansen passport, or Jews expelled from their countries and those alleging to embark from a Portuguese port without a consular visa for their country of destination, or air or sea tickets, or an Embarkation Guarantee from the respective companies, the consuls needed to ask permission in advance of the Foreign Ministry head office in Lisbon." With Europe at war, this meant that refugees fleeing from the Nazis would have serious difficulties.

Historian Neill Lochery asserts that Circular 14 "was not issued out of thin air" and that this type of barrier was not unique to Portugal and with the country's very limited economic resources it was viewed as necessary. It was economic reasons rather than ideological reasons that made the Portuguese avoid accepting more refugees says Lochery. Milgram expressed similar views, asserting that Portugal's regime did not distinguish between Jews and non-Jews but rather between immigrant Jews who came and had the means to leave the country, and those lacking those means. Portugal prevented Jews from putting down roots in the country not because they were Jews but because the regime feared foreign influence in general, and feared the entrance of Bolsheviks and left-wing agitators fleeing from Germany. Milgram believes that antisemitic ideological patterns had no hold in the ruling structure of the "Estado Novo" and a fortiori in the various strata of Portuguese society. Milgram also says that modern anti-Semitism failed "to establish even a toehold in Portugal" while it grew racist and virulent elsewhere in early twentieth-century Europe. Salazar`s policies towards the Jews seem to have been favourable and consistent." Nevertheless, although it was not anti-Semitism that motivated the Portuguese government, but the danger of mass emigration to the country, the outcome of the border policy made life difficult for Jews fleeing Nazism.

Sousa Mendes' disobedience to the orders of the Salazar dictatorship
There are different views on the uniqueness of Sousa Mendes' actions: According to Dr. Mordecai Paldiel, past Director of the Department of the Righteous at Yad Vashem, "In Portugal of those days, it was unthinkable for a diplomatic official, especially in a sensitive post, to disobey clear-cut instructions and get away with it." However, according to Yad Vashem historian Avraham Milgram "issuing visas in contravention of instructions was widespread at Portuguese consulates all over Europe" and that "this form of insubordination was rife in consular circles." Sousa Mendes began disobeying Circular 14 almost immediately, on the grounds that it was an inhumane and racist directive.

The process that ended with Sousa Mendes’ discharge from his consular career began with two visas issued during the Phoney War and long before the invasion of France: the first issued on 28 November 1939 to Professor Arnold Wiznitzer, an Austrian historian who had been stripped of his nationality by the Nuremberg Laws, and the second on 1 March 1940 to the Spanish Republican Eduardo Neira Laporte, an anti-Franco activist living in France. Sousa Mendes granted the visas first, and only after granting the visas did he ask for the required approvals. Sousa Mendes was reprimanded and warned in writing that "any new transgression or violation on this issue will be considered disobedience and will entail a disciplinary procedure where it will not be possible to overlook that you have repeatedly committed acts which have entailed warnings and reprimands."

When Sousa Mendes issued these visas, it was a deliberate act of disobedience to the decree of an authoritarian dictatorship. "Here was a unique act by a man who believed his religion imposed certain obligations", said Paldiel. "He said, 'I'm saving innocent lives,' as simply as he might have said, 'Come, walk with me in my garden.'"

Sousa Mendes also began keeping Andrée Cibial, a French pianist and singer, as his mistress around this time and she eventually got pregnant, which she publicly announced during a Sunday's mass at Ribérac cathedral.

On 10 May 1940, Germany launched a blitzkrieg offensive against France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, and millions of refugees took to the roads. On 15 May, Sousa Mendes issued transit visas to Maria Tavares, a Luxembourg citizen of Portuguese origin, and to her husband Paul Miny, also a Luxembourger. Two weeks later, the couple returned to the Bordeaux Consulate asking Sousa Mendes to issue them false papers. Sousa Mendes agreed to their request, and on 30 May 1940, he issued a Portuguese passport listing Paul Miny as Maria's brother, therefore as having Portuguese citizenship. This time Sousa Mendes risked himself a great deal more than he had before; disobeying Circular 14 was one thing, but issuing a passport with a false identity, for someone of military age was a crime. Sousa Mendes later provided the following explanation: "This couple asked me for a Portuguese passport, where they would figure as brother and sister, for fear that the husband, who was still of military age, would be detained on passing the French border, and incorporated in the Luxembourg army then being organized in France." Portuguese authorities were remarkably lax when dealing with this transgression. Paul Miny was a deserter (not a Jew) and Sousa Mendes' offence carried out a penalty of two year in prison and expulsion from public service.

There were other cases from May 1940 where Sousa Mendes disobeyed Circular 14. Examples include issuing visas to the Ertag, Flaksbaum and Landesman families, all granted on 29 May, despite having been rejected in a telegram from the Portuguese dictator Salazar to Sousa Mendes. Another example is the writer Gisèle Quittner, rejected by Salazar but rescued by Sousa Mendes, to whom she expressed her gratitude: "You are Portugal's best propaganda and an honor to your country.  All those who know you praise your courage...."

Encounter with Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Kruger

As the German army approached Paris, the largest single movement of refugees in Europe since the Early Middle Ages began. An estimated six to ten million people took to the roads and railways to escape the German invasion. Bordeaux and other southern French cities were overrun by desperate refugees. One of these was a Chassidic Rabbi, Chaim Kruger, originally from Poland but more recently from Brussels, escaping with his wife and five children. Kruger and Sousa Mendes met by chance in Bordeaux, and quickly became friends. Sousa Mendes offered a visa to the Kruger family in defiance of Circular 14. In response, Kruger took a moral stand and refused to accept the visa unless all of his "brothers and sisters" (the mass of Jewish refugees stranded on the streets of Bordeaux) received visas too. Kruger's response plunged Sousa Mendes into "a moral crisis of incalculable proportions."

At the same time, Sousa Mendes was also living out a personal drama. Andrée Cibial, Sousa Mendes’ lover, pregnant with his child, showed up at the consulate and provoked a scandal in front of Sousa Mendes' family, getting herself imprisoned for the incident. By this time, Sousa Mendes had a nervous breakdown and secluded himself in prayer, questioning whether or not he should issue as many visas as he could, saving lives at the expense of his own career. "Here the situation is horrible and I am in bed because of a strong nervous breakdown," he wrote to his son-in-law on 13 June 1940.

Act of conscience
On 12 June, despite the guarantees given by Franco, personally, to the Portuguese Ambassador Teotónio Pereira, that even if Italy entered the war, Spain would remain neutral, Spain took on the status of a non-belligerent power and invaded Tangiers, further endangering Portuguese neutrality. With German tanks approaching the Pyrenees and with anti-British demonstrations in Spain, demanding the return of Gibraltar, there was every prospect that Portugal and Spain would become embroiled in the hostilities.

On June 12 Salazar issued instructions to the Portuguese consulates in France to provide the Infanta Marie Anne of Portugal, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg and Infanta Maria Antónia of Portugal Duchess of Parma with Portuguese Passports. With these Portuguese Passports the entire entourage of the royal families could get visas without creating problems to the neutrality of the Portuguese Government. This way Zita of Bourbon-Parma and her son Otto von Habsburg got their visas because they were descendants of Portuguese citizens. Following the German annexation of Austria, Otto was sentenced to death by the Nazi regime.

On June 13, Salazar had to act fast again, this time to support the Belgium Royal family. Salazar sent instructions to the Portuguese Consulate in Bayonne saying the "Portuguese territory is completely open" to the Belgium Royal Family and its entourage.

On 16 June, despite his seclusion, Sousa Mendes issued 40 visas, including those for the Rothschild family, and he was paid his customary personal compensation fee for issuing visas on a Sunday.

On 17 June, Pétain announced in a broadcast to the French people that "it is with a heavy heart that I tell you today that we must stop fighting," and he calls on the Germans for an armistice that will end the fighting. On that same day, Sousa Mendes emerged from his seclusion, impelled by "a divine power," with his decision made. According to his son Pedro Nuno, "My father got up, apparently recovering his serenity. He was full of punch. He washed, shaved and got dressed. Then he strode out of his bedroom, flung open the door to the chancellery, and announced in a loud voice: 'From now on I'm giving everyone visas.  There will be no more nationalities, races or religions.'  Then our father told us that he had heard a voice, that of his conscience or of God, which dictated to him what course of action he should take, and that everything was clear in his mind."

His daughter Isabel and her husband Jules strongly opposed his decision, and tried to dissuade him from what they considered to be a fatal mistake. But Sousa Mendes did not listen to them and instead began to work intensively to grant the visas. "I would rather stand with God and against man than with man and against God," he reportedly explained. He set up an assembly line process, aided by his wife, sons Pedro Nuno and José Antonio, his secretary José Seabra, Rabbi Kruger, and a few other refugees.

According to the Bordeaux Register of Visas on the 17th were issued 247 Visas; on the 18th, 216; between the 19th and the 22nd, an average of 350 were written into the Register of Visas.

The testimony from American writer Eugene Bagger is quite unfavourable regarding the efficiency of the "assembly line" set up by Sousa Mendes. Bagger says that on 18 June, he queued for a couple of hours at the Portuguese Consulate, hoping to get a visa. Bagger says that the pushing and elbowing drove him to despair and he gave up after a few hours. The next morning he joined again a mob of four hundred in front of the Portuguese Consulate. He waited in line from 09:00 till 11:00, again to no avail and he finally quit. He then decided to have a drink at the Hotel Splendid, where he found Sousa Mendes having an aperitif with a friend. Sousa Mendes told Bagger that he was tired from overworking the previous day, from the crowds and from the heat. Then, at Bagger's request, Sousa Mendes signed Bagger's passport and told him to go back to the consulate to have it stamped. To Bagger's surprise, he was then helped by M. Skalski, the Polish consul at Arcachon. At the consulate, M. Skalski was able to cut through the crowds and get Bagger's passports duly stamped.

On 20 June, the British Embassy in Lisbon sent a letter to the Portuguese Foreign Office accusing Sousa Mendes of "deferring until after office hours all applications for visas" as well as "charging them at a special rate" and requiring at least one refugee "to contribute to a Portuguese charitable fund before the visa was granted." This complaint from the British Embassy and the timing of Sousa Mendes' unilateral decision could not have been worse for Salazar and his carefully planned attempt to preserve Portuguese neutrality. Salazar had instructed consulates in Spain and those in the south of France ― Bordeaux, Bayonne, Perpignan, Marseilles, Nice ― to issue transit visas to British citizens. Bordeaux was bombed by the Wehrmacht on the night of 19–20 June 1940. In the morning, the demand for Portuguese visas intensified, not only in Bordeaux but also in nearby Bayonne, near the Spanish border. Sousa Mendes rushed to the Portuguese Consulate in Bayonne, which was under his jurisdiction, to relieve the Vice-Consul Faria Machado, who was refusing to grant visas to the crush of refugees. However, Eugene Bagger says that, at Bayonne, he saw Sousa Mendes rushing out of the Portuguese Consulate, pursued by a mob, and that Sousa Mendes, holding his head between his hands, was crying "Go away! No more visas!", then jumped into a car and shot down the hill pursued by curses from the mass of visa seekers.

In issuing visas at the Bayonne consulate, Sousa Mendes was aided by the Bayonne consular secretary, Manuel de Vieira Braga. Faria Machado, a Salazar loyalist in charge of the Bayonne consulate, reported this behaviour to Portugal's ambassador to Spain, Pedro Teotónio Pereira. Teotónio Pereira, a loyalist to the historic Anglo-Portuguese alliance, promptly set out for the French-Spanish border to put a stop to this activity. After observing Sousa Mendes' action, Teotónio Pereira sent a telegram to the Lisbon authorities in which he described Sousa Mendes as being "out of his mind" and also said that Sousa Mendes' "disorientation has made a great impression on the Spanish side with a political campaign against Portugal being created immediately accusing our country of giving shelter to the scum of the democratic regimes and defeated elements fleeing before the German victory." He declared Sousa Mendes to be mentally incompetent and, acting on Salazar's authority, he invalidated all further visas. Teotónio Pereira's role in drawing Spain with Portugal into a truly neutral peninsular bloc in line with the allies' strategy was praised both by the British and the American ambassadors. Sousa Mendes continued on to Hendaye to assist there, thus narrowly missing two cablegrams from Lisbon sent on 22 June to Bordeaux, ordering him to stop even as France's armistice with Germany became official. Sousa Mendes ordered the honorary Portuguese vice-consul in Toulouse, Emile Gissot, to issue transit visas to all who applied.

The armistice was signed on 22 June. Under its terms, two-thirds of France was to be occupied by the Germans. On 26 June, the British Ambassador in Madrid wrote to London "The arrival of the Germans on the Pyrenees is a tremendous event in the eyes of every Spaniard. Will it mean the passage of troops through Spain to Portugal or Africa?" Meanwhile, Teotónio Pereira, following Spanish protests, declared the visas issued by Sousa Mendes to be null and void. The New York Times reported that some 10,000 persons attempting to cross over into Spain were excluded because authorities no longer granted recognition to their visas: "Portugal announced that Portuguese visas granted at Bordeaux were invalid, and Spain was permitting bearers of these documents to enter only in exceptional cases." The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that small Portugal, whose population was just over seven million, had received an estimated two million applications for visas, permanent or transit. Most of them came from Frenchmen, Belgians, Dutch, and Poles in France who required Portuguese visas to pass through Spain. The applications must have included tens of thousands from Jews.

On 24 June, Salazar recalled Sousa Mendes to Portugal, an order he received upon returning to Bordeaux on 26 June but he complied slowly, arriving in Portugal on 8 July. Along the way, he continued issuing Portuguese visas to refugees now trapped in occupied France, and even led a large group to a remote border post that had not received Lisbon's order. His son, John-Paul Abranches, told the story: "As his diplomatic car reached the French border town of Hendaye, my father encountered a large group of stranded refugees for whom he had previously issued visas. Those people had been turned away because the Portuguese government had phoned the guards, commanding 'Do not honour Mendes's signature on visas.'... Ordering his driver to slow down, Father waved the group to follow him to a border checkpoint that had no telephones. In the official black limousine with its diplomatic license tags, Father led those refugees across the border toward freedom."

After the intervention of Augusto d'Esaguy and Amzalak, most of the refugees issued visas by Sousa Mendes were allowed to continue on their way to Portugal and were well received,

On 26 June, the main European office of HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) was authorized by Salazar to be transferred from Paris to Lisbon. Salazar allowed Jewish relief organizations to set up offices in Lisbon and operate with little interference from the authorities. Initially this was done against the will of the British Embassy in Lisbon. The British feared that this would make the Portuguese people less sympathetic with the allied cause.

Disciplinary proceeding and punishment
Upon returning to Portugal in early July 1940, Sousa Mendes was subjected to a disciplinary proceeding that has been described as "a severe crackdown" and "a merciless disciplinary process." The charges against him included: "the violation of Dispatch 14; the order to the consul in Bayonne to issue visas to all those who asked for them 'with the claim that it was necessary to save all these people'; the order given to the consul in Bayonne to distribute visas free of charge; the permission given by telephone to the consul in Toulouse that he could issue visas; acting in a way that was dishonourable for Portugal vis-à-vis the Spanish and German authorities."; the confessed passport forgery to help Luxembourger Paul Miny escape army mobilization; abandoning his post at Bordeaux without authorization and extortion, this latest one based on the accusation made by the British Embassy. Rui Afonso wrote in 1990's Injustiça (Injustice) that the disciplinary action against Sousa Mendes was less due to the granting of too many visas and more the result of his various financial intrigues such as requiring applicants to donate to charity, and his personal use of public monies. Afonso softened this stance in his 1995 book Um Homem Bom (One Good Man). Historian Avraham Milgram observes that Afonso holds a minority view: the mainstream view is that Sousa Mendes was disciplined for the granting of too many visas, in violation of his instructions.

The accusation asserted that "an atmosphere of panic does in fact provide an extenuating circumstance for the acts committed by the Defendant during the month of June and possibly even for those committed in the second half of the month of May..., however, the acts committed during that period are no more than a repetition or extension of a procedure that already existed, for which the same extenuating circumstance cannot be invoked. There had been infractions and repetitions long before 15 May...this is the 4th case of disciplinary proceedings brought against the Defendant".

Sousa Mendes submitted his response to the charges on 12 August 1940, in which he clarified his motivation: "It was indeed my aim to save all those people whose suffering was indescribable: some had lost their spouses, others had no news of missing children, others had seen their loved ones succumb to the German bombings which occurred every day and did not spare the terrified refugees....There was another aspect that should not be overlooked: the fate of many people if they fell into the hands of the enemy....eminent people of many countries with whom we have always been on excellent terms: statesmen, ambassadors and ministers, generals and other high officers, professors, men of letters,...officers from armies of countries that had been occupied, Austrians, Czechs and Poles, who would be shot as rebels; there were also many Belgians, Dutch, French, Luxembourgers and even English...Many were Jews who were already persecuted and sought to escape the horror of further persecution. Finally an endless number of women attempting to avoid being at the mercy of Teutonic sensuality. I could not differentiate between nationalities as I was obeying the dictates of humanity that distinguish between neither race nor nationality; as for the charge of dishonourable conduct, when I left Bayonne I was applauded by hundreds of people, and through me it was Portugal that was being honoured....'"

On 19 October 1940, the verdict was handed down: "disobeying higher orders during service." The disciplinary board recommended a demotion. On 30 October 1940, Salazar rejected this recommendation and imposed his own sentence: "I sentence Consul First Class, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, to a penalty of one year of inactivity with the right to one half of his rank's pay, being obliged subsequently to be retired." He further ordered that all files in the case be sealed.

There was also an unofficial punishment: the blacklisting and social banishment of Aristides de Sousa Mendes and his family. "My grandfather...knew there would be some retribution, but to lose everything and have the family disgraced, he never thought it would go that far", said the hero's grandson, also named Aristides. The family took meals at the soup kitchen of the Jewish community of Lisbon. When told that the soup kitchen was intended for refugees, Sousa Mendes replied, "But we too are refugees."

Sousa Mendes was listed in the Portuguese Consular and Diplomatic Yearbook until 1954. After the one year punishment with half-pay, he received a monthly payment of 1,593 Portuguese escudos per month. According to Rui Afonso, "although it was not a salary of a prince, one should not forget that at that time, in Portugal, the monthly salary of a school teacher was only 500 Escudos". When he died, in 1954 he was receiving a monthly salary of 2,300 escudos.

According to Milgram, Mendes' actions, while exceptional in its scope, were not unique, as issuing visas in contravention of the Portuguese government's instructions occurred at other Portuguese consulates as well.

After the war, with the victory of the Allied forces over the Axis, Salazar took credit for Portugal having received the refugees, and the Portuguese history books were written accordingly. Manuela Franco, Director of the Portuguese Foreign Ministry archives, stated in 2000 that "the image of 'Portugal, a safe haven' was born then in Bordeaux, and it lasts to this day."

Last years

Throughout the war years and beyond, Sousa Mendes was optimistic that his punishment would be reversed and his deed would be recognized. In a 1945 letter to the Portuguese Parliament, he explained that he had disobeyed orders because he had considered them to be unconstitutional, as the Portuguese Constitution forbade discrimination on the basis of religion. This was the first time that Sousa Mendes used this line of argument and he explained that he hadn't used it before because, being a public official, he did not want to attract publicity and therefore compromise Portugal's neutrality.

In 1941, Sousa Mendes applied to the Portuguese Bar Association and he was admitted to the bar to practice law. But in 1942, he wrote a letter to the bar, explaining that since he was living in a small village, in his mansion at Passal, he was not able to work as a lawyer and he asked for his license to be cancelled. Later, in 1944, he asked for readmission, which was granted. Then, as a lawyer, he won a court case, in which he defended two of his sons, Carlos and Sebastian, who were being deprived of Portuguese citizenship because they had enlisted in the allied armed forces in the UK.

Just before the war's end in 1945, Sousa Mendes suffered a stroke that left him at least partially paralysed and unable to work.

In 1946, a Portuguese journalist tried to raise awareness for Sousa Mendes outside of Portugal by publishing the facts under a pseudonym in a US newspaper. Sousa Mendes' wife Angelina died in 1948.

The following year he married his former mistress Andrée Cibial, with whom he had a daughter, Marie-Rose. Cibial soon clashed with Sousa Mendes' sons and the couple moved to Cabanas de Viriato. It did not take long for Andrée to show to Sousa Mendes' sons that they were not welcome at Passal, and soon the youngsters were separated from their father. John Paul joined other brothers and sisters already living in California. Pedro Nuno left for the Congo. Geraldo went to Angola, and Clotilde went to Mozambique. On account of Andrée`s spending habits, Sousa Mendes also started to have disputes with his brothers César and João Paulo and his cousin Silvério.

As his financial situation deteriorated, he would sometimes write to the people he had helped asking for money. On one occasion, Maurice de Rothschild sent him 30,000 Portuguese escudos, a considerable amount of money in Portugal at that time.

In 1950, Sousa Mendes and Cibial travelled to France. Their daughter, Marie-Rose, had been raised in France by her aunt and uncle and was ten when she met her father for the first time. Her parents began spending the summer months with her each year.

In his final years, Sousa Mendes was abandoned by most of his colleagues and friends, and at times was blamed by some of his close relatives. His children moved to other countries in search of opportunities they were now denied in Portugal, although by all accounts they never blamed their father or regretted his decisions. He asked his children to help clear the family name and make the story known. In 1951, one of his sons, Sebastião, published a novella about the Bordeaux events, Flight Through Hell. César de Sousa Mendes, twin brother of Aristides, did everything he could to try to get Salazar to reverse his punishment, but to no avail. But Sousa Mendes never regretted his action. "I could not have acted otherwise, and I therefore accept all that has befallen me with love," he reportedly said. To his lawyer he wrote: "In truth, I disobeyed, but my disobedience does not dishonour me. I did not respect orders that to me represented the persecution of true castaways who sought with all their strength to be saved from Hitler's wrath. Above the order, for me, there was God's law, and that's the one I have always sought to adhere to without hesitation. The true value of the Christian religion is to love one's neighbour."

Sousa Mendes always lived with financial problems and Cibial's spending habits aggravated the situation. The couple eventually ended up selling all their furniture from their family mansion and raising debts with banks. Sousa Mendes died in poverty on 3 April 1954, owing money to his lenders and still in disgrace with his government. The only person present when he died was one of his nieces.

Number of visa recipients
There are different views regarding the number of visas issued by Sousa Mendes. It has been widely published that Sousa Mendes saved 30,000 refugees, of which 10,000 were Jews. Historian Avraham Milgram thinks that it was probably Harry Ezratty who was the first to mention in an article published in 1964 that Sousa Mendes had saved 30,000 refugees, of which 10,000 were Jews, a number which has since been repeated automatically by journalists and academics. Milgram says that Ezratty, imprudently, took the total number of Jewish refugees who passed through Portugal and ascribed it to the work of Aristides de Sousa Mendes. Milgram thinks that "the discrepancy between the reality and the myth of the number of visas granted by Sousa Mendes is great." To make his point, Milgram cross-checked the numbers from the Bordeaux visa register entry books with those of the HICEM reports, and although he acknowledged that visas delivered in the cities of Bayonne, Hendaye and Toulouse cannot be exactly determined, he asserted that the numbers are exaggerated.

In 2011, Milgram published a densely researched book, Portugal, Salazar and the Jews and for a second time he asserted that "authors, especially those who wish to sing the praises of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, tend to overstate the number of visas with figures that do not satisfy research criteria, but rather correspond to their wishful thinking".

A similar opinion is shared by British historian Neill Lochery. In 2011, Lochery quoted Milgram's numbers, and to further support his view he also cross checked numbers with the Portuguese Emigration Police files and he also concluded that the numbers usually published by popular literature are a "myth". Both these historians concur that this does not diminish the greatness of Sousa Mendes's gesture. Rui Afonso, the first Sousa Mendes biographer, also says that José Seabra, Sousa Mendes' deputy at Bordeaux, always testified that the order of magnitude of irregular visas issued at Bordeaux was within hundreds.

In 2008, the Portuguese ambassador João Hall Themido took a stand affirming that in his opinion, the Sousa Mendes story was a "myth invented by Jews" and asserting his disbelief in the 30,000 figure.

A similar path was followed by Portuguese Professor José Hermano Saraiva, a former António de Oliveira Salazar and Marcelo Caetano minister, and a great admirer of Salazar. Professor Saraiva also asserts that it was the Portuguese neutrality and hospitality that saved thousands of lives throughout the war—that a stamp in a passport would never be enough to save anyone should the Portuguese Government at that time have decided to follow a different path.

A complex operation was needed to house and feed all those people moving and staying in Portugal for a considerable period of time. According to Saraiva and some other historians, Leite Pinto, former Portuguese minister of education, should also be given credit for most refugees saved during the war. Professor Baltasar Rebelo de Sousa mentioned the "Leite Pinto operation", that used sealed trains to bring thousands of refugees into Portugal, and praised this operation in a tribute to Leite Pinto. Forced by the circumstances, several Portuguese assistance associations, sponsored by the government, were then created in Portugal for the integration and hosting of this large number of refugees, mostly Jews, many hosted and received by Portuguese families.

On the other hand, as a reaction to Milgram's assertions, French writer, Eric Lebreton, in 2010, argued that "Milgram did not account for the visas that were delivered in Bayonne, Hendaye and Toulouse, and on the other hand, he [Milgram] holds firm to the number presented in the one surviving registry book of José Seabra (Sousa Mendes' deputy). According to Lebreton, Milgram's article, while very interesting in other ways, lacks details and knowledge on this point."

Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer characterized Sousa Mendes' deed as "perhaps the largest rescue action by a single individual during the Holocaust."

In 2015, Olivia Mattis, musicologist and Board President of the Sousa Mendes Foundation in the United States, published the findings of the Sousa Mendes Foundation stating that "tens of thousands" of visa recipients is a figure in the correct order of magnitude.

Posthumous rehabilitation and recognition
After Sousa Mendes' death in 1954, his children worked tirelessly to clear his name and make the story known. In the early 1960s, a few articles began appearing in the U.S. press. On 21 February 1961, David Ben-Gurion, the Prime Minister of Israel, ordered that twenty trees be planted by the Jewish National Fund in memory of Sousa Mendes and in recognition of his deed. In 1963, Yad Vashem began recognizing Holocaust rescuers as Righteous Among the Nations, and Sousa Mendes, in 1966, was among the earliest to be so named, thanks in large part to the efforts of his daughter Joana. But with Salazar still in power, "the diplomat and his efforts remained unknown even in his own country for years." Moreover, Salazar's representatives gave statements to the press casting doubt on Sousa Mendes' heroism by denying that Circular 14 had ever existed.

Following the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal, when the Estado Novo dictatorship was overthrown and democracy was established, Dr. Nuno A. A. de Bessa Lopes, a Portuguese government official, took the initiative of reopening the Sousa Mendes case and making recommendations. His assessment, based on his viewing of previously sealed government files, was that the Salazar government had knowingly sacrificed Sousa Mendes for its own political ends, and that the verdict and punishment were illegal and should be overturned. "Aristides de Sousa Mendes was condemned for having refused to be an accomplice to Nazi war crimes," the report concluded. The report was suppressed by the Portuguese government for over a decade. "The failure to act on the Lopes report reflects the fact that there was never a serious purge of Fascist supporters from government ministries," explained journalist Reese Erlich.

In 1986, inspired by the election of Mário Soares, a civilian president in Portugal, Sousa Mendes' youngest son John Paul began to circulate a petition to the Portuguese president within his adopted country, the United States. "I want people in Portugal to know who he was, what he did, and why he did it," explained John Paul. He and his wife Joan worked with Robert Jacobvitz, an executive at the Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay in Oakland, California, and lawyer Anne Treseder to create the "International Committee to Commemorate Dr. Aristides de Sousa Mendes." They were able to gain the support of two members of the California delegation of the United States House of Representatives, Tony Coelho and Henry Waxman, who introduced a resolution in Congress to recognize his humanitarian actions. That same year, Sousa Mendes was honored at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, where John Paul and his brother Sebastião gave impassioned speeches and Waxman spoke as well. In 1987, the Portuguese Republic began to rehabilitate Sousa Mendes' memory and granted him a posthumous Order of Liberty medal, one of that country's highest honors, although the consul's diplomatic honors still were not restored. In October of that year, the Comité national français en hommage à Aristides de Sousa Mendes was established in Bordeaux, France, presided over for the next twenty-five years by Manuel Dias Vaz. On 18 March 1988, the Portuguese parliament officially dismissed all charges, restoring Sousa Mendes to the diplomatic corps by unanimous vote, and honoring him with a standing ovation. He was promoted to the rank of Ministro Plenipotenciário de 2ª classe and awarded the Cross of Merit. In December of that year, the U.S. Ambassador to Portugal, Edward Rowell, presented copies of the congressional resolution from the previous year to Pedro Nuno de Sousa Mendes, one of the sons who had helped his father in the "visa assembly line" at Bordeaux, and to Portuguese President Mário Soares at the Palácio de Belém. In 1994, former President Mário Soares dedicated a bust of Sousa Mendes in Bordeaux, along with a commemorative plaque at 14 quai Louis‑XVIII, the address at which the consulate at Bordeaux had been located.

In 1995, Portugal held a week-long National Homage to Sousa Mendes, culminating with an event in a 2000-seat Lisbon theater that was filled to capacity. A commemorative stamp was issued to mark the occasion. The Portuguese President Mário Soares declared Sousa Mendes to be "Portugal's greatest hero of the twentieth century." On 10 June 1996, Parc De Sousa-Mendes, a playground in Montreal, Canada, was dedicated in his honor. In 1997, an international homage to Sousa Mendes was organized by the European Union in Strasbourg, France.

Casa do Passal, the mansion that Sousa Mendes had to abandon and sell in his final years, was left for decades to decay into a "ghost of a building," and at one time was to be razed and replaced by a hotel. However, with reparation funds given by the Portuguese government to Sousa Mendes' heirs in 2000, the family decided to create the Fundação Aristides de Sousa Mendes. With assistance from government officials, the foundation purchased the family home in order to develop a museum in his honor. On 3 March 2011, the Casa do Passal was designated a National Monument of Portugal.

In April 2004, to mark the 50th anniversary of Sousa Mendes' death, the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation and the Angelo Roncalli Committee organized more than 80 commemorations around the world. Religious, cultural and educational activities took place in 30 countries on five continents, spearheaded by João Crisóstomo. On 11 May 2005, a commemoration in memory of Aristides de Sousa Mendes was held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. On 14 January 2007, Sousa Mendes was voted into the top ten of the poll show Os Grandes Portugueses (the greatest Portuguese). On 25 March 2007, when the final rankings were announced, it was revealed that Sousa Mendes came in third place overall, behind communist leader Álvaro Cunhal (runner-up) and the dictator António de Oliveira Salazar (winner). In February 2008, Portuguese parliamentary speaker Jaime Gama led a session which launched a virtual museum, on the Internet, offering access to photographs and other documents chronicling Sousa Mendes' life. On 24 September 2010, the Sousa Mendes Foundation was formed in the United States with the purpose of raising money for the conversion of the Sousa Mendes home into a museum and site of conscience, and in order to spread his story throughout North America.

In May 2012, a campaign was launched to name a Bordeaux bridge after Sousa Mendes. In January 2013, the United Nations headquarters in New York honored Sousa Mendes and featured Sousa Mendes visa recipient Leon Moed as a keynote speaker during its International Days of Commemoration of Victims and Martyrs of the Holocaust. On 20 June 2013, a big rally was held in front of the Sousa Mendes home, Casa do Passal, to make a plea for its restoration. An American architect, Eric Moed, spearheaded the event, attended by visa recipient families from all over the world, including his grandfather Leon Moed. At this event, a representative of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture publicly pledged $400,000 in European Union funds for the restoration effort. On 20 October 2013, a playground in Toronto, Canada was renamed in honor of Sousa Mendes. That same month, the Portuguese airline Windavia named an airplane after him. In December 2013, a letter that Sousa Mendes had penned to Pope Pius XII in 1946, begging for help from the Catholic Church, was delivered to Pope Francis. In late May 2014, construction began at the Casa do Passal with funds from the European Union. In September 2014, TAP Air Portugal has named its newest Airbus A319 after Aristides de Sousa Mendes, as a tribute to the Portuguese Consul. An oratorio entitled "Circular 14: The Apotheosis of Aristides", by Neely Bruce, detailed the life of Sousa Mendes. The first performance was held on 24 January 2016.

In 2022, in recognition of his effort in rescuing Polish citizens, he was honored by the President of Poland Andrzej Duda with Virtus et Fraternitas Medal.

Notable people issued visas by Sousa Mendes

 * Academics

 * Stanley Deser, Ancell Professor of Physics, emeritus, Brandeis University, Caltech
 * Lissy Feingold Jarvik, professor emeritus of psychiatry, UCLA

 * Creative artists
 * Hélène de Beauvoir, painter, sister of Simone de Beauvoir
 * Salvador Dalí, the painter, whose Russian wife Gala was directly threatened by Dispatch 14
 * Marcel Dalio, actor in Casablanca
 * Grzegorz Fitelberg, conductor and violinist
 * Jean-Michel Frank, interior designer
 * Hugo Haas, actor
 * Maria Lani, actress and artist's model for Matisse, Chagall and others
 * Madeleine Lebeau, actress in Casablanca
 * Alexander Liberman, sculptor and artistic director of Vogue magazine
 * Witold Małcużyński, pianist
 * Hendrik Marsman, poet
 * Robert Montgomery, actor
 * H. A. Rey and Margret Rey, authors/illustrators of Curious George
 * Claire Rommer, actress
 * Paul Rosenberg, art dealer, and family
 * Antoni Słonimski, poet
 * Tereska Torrès, novelist
 * Julian Tuwim, poet
 * Jean-Claude van Itallie, actor and playwright
 * King Vidor, film director

 * Journalists
 * Hamilton Fish Armstrong
 * Eugene Szekeres Bagger
 * Marian Dąbrowski
 * Boris Smolar

 * Political figures
 * Joseph Bech, Foreign Minister of Luxembourg
 * Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg
 * Pierre Dupong, Prime Minister of Luxembourg
 * Otto von Habsburg, nemesis of Hitler and heir to the Austrian throne
 * Maurice de Rothschild, art collector, vintner, financier, Senator of France
 * Henri Torres, French lawyer and key supporter of Charles de Gaulle
 * Albert de Vleeschauwer, a leading member of the Belgian government in exile

Secondary, by scholars

 * Also published as:
 * Also published as:
 * Also published as:
 * Also published as:
 * Also published as:
 * Also published as:
 * Also published as:
 * Also published as:
 * Also published as:

Filmography

 * ... With God Against Man ..., documentary by Semyon Pinkhasov (U.S., 2014).
 * I am Alive Thanks to Aristides de Sousa Mendes, short documentary by Priscilla Fontoura (Portugal, 2013).
 * Os Nove Dias de Sousa Mendes, documentary by Inês Faro (Canada, 2012).
 * The Consul of Bordeaux, fictionalized historical drama by Francisco Manso and João Correa, with Vítor Norte and Antonio Capelo (Portugal, 2011).
 * Disobedience: The Sousa Mendes Story, docudrama by Joël Santoni with Bernard Le Coq and Nanou Garcia (France, 2009).
 * Diplomats for the Damned, documentary, The History Channel (U.S., 2000).
 * Le consul proscrit, documentary by Diana Andringa and Teresa Olga (Portugal, 1994).

title: Aristides de Sousa Mendes


text:
User talk:Gavar~enwiki

Welcome
Hello, welcome to Wikipedia.

You might find these links helpful in creating new pages or helping with the above tasks: How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style. You should read our policies at some point too.

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

 * If you made any edits before you got an account, you might be interested in assigning those to your username.

 * You can sign your name using three tildes, like this: . If you use four, you can add a datestamp too.

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Again, welcome! - UtherSRG 14:06, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Gavar. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Gavar~enwiki that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name. If you think you might own all of the accounts with this name and this message is in error, please visit Special:MergeAccount to check and attach all of your accounts to prevent them from being renamed.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 00:07, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 13:11, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Gavar~enwiki


text:
User talk:Apoivre

Welcome
Hello, welcome to Wikipedia.

You might find these links helpful in creating new pages or helping with the above tasks: How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style. You should read our policies at some point too.

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

 * If you made any edits before you got an account, you might be interested in assigning those to your username.

 * You can sign your name using three tildes, like this: . If you use four, you can add a datestamp too.

 * If you ever think a page or image should be deleted, please list it at the votes for deletion page. There is also a votes for undeletion page if you want to retrieve something that you think should not have been deleted.

Again, welcome! - UtherSRG 14:10, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This is getting pretty far afield from Petronila, so I thought I'd reply here instead. BTW, given that you apparently have some serious areas of expertise, you might (1) put a brief note about that on your personal page and (2) add yourself to relevant lists at Translation into English. And please do sign yourself up a WikiProject Ethnic Groups!

Yes, WikiProjects are oriented towards uniform handling of material, rather than to content. Maybe that's not the right vehicle for this. It sounds like you have very, very serious expertise on medieval Aragon, and maybe the best thing to do is just to go through and make the relevant changes yourself. I would suggest, in any case that you also engage the people who have been handling this material in the Catalan Wikipedia, whether or no you are not planning to edit there yourself. That is presumably where the most people are who feel a stake in the matter and consider themselves knowledgable, and they deserve at least a heads-up so that they can contest things if they feel that part of where you are taking this is wrong. -- Jmabel 16:55, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Cities of Russia
I see you've been going through Russian cities lately, introducing some markup that looks pretty strange. AFAIK, the use of bold is reserved for the first mention of the name(s) of the subject. That is, in an article on a city, it's definitely OK to mark its name in bold the first time it appears (same goes for older names of the city) - but not every time you mention it and not when it comes to population, highway distance from Vladivostok and such. apoivre 18:50, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know, actually. I was marking them all because I misunderstood the guideline (I edited the cities you are looking at quite a while ago when I just discovered the wikipedia).  I stopped doing extensive markup about 2 months ago when I realized it had not been the way to go :).  If you can correct the ones I screwed up, I would appreciate that, but I was planning on returning to those articles anyway to add more information and would eventually clean them up myself.--Ezhiki 20:25, May 19, 2004 (UTC)
 * OK. Somebody must go through them anyway. I'll do the now missing pages on republics and oblasts capitals when I have time. More like stubs actually but anyway, better than nothing at all, I say -- apoivre 12:33, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Go ahead. I will join you when I am done with the districts list.--Ezhiki 13:59, May 20, 2004 (UTC)

Vocabulary Project
Hi there, since I saw you registered as a translator I would like to know if you are interested in this. I have written a program for learning vocabulary. It is based on the belief that it is best to learn foreign words by learning typical sentences. I currently have files in English, French (with sound), Spanish, and Portuguese, Catalan is in the planning. The program can also be used for learning other stuff that works with the question/answer scheme, e.g. the theory for the driving licence or anatomy. It also uses images and sound files for alternation and in order to work on the pronunciation. If you are interested please check my page and let me know. Get-back-world-respect 00:48, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

Area
Where did you get the information on the areas of the federal subjects of Russia? It seems that every time I look this info up in a different source the numbers are different. I just wanted to find out where the most accurate information was. Thanks.--Ezhiki 16:17, Jun 17, 2004 (UTC)
 * I used encyclopaedia available through Yandex. Numbers do differ from one source to another.--apoivre 07:54, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Translations, greetings
Hello Apoivre,

I thought you might be interested in this:

There are some major translations taking place this week. The first edition of the Wikimedia Newsletter, and a global press release for the 1,000,000th article, both of which are scheduled for the next two weeks. See Translation requests for more information.

Cheers, +sj +

translation
There is an enormous backlog at Translation into English, more than for all other languages combined. I see you are signed up at Translators_available. Would you be at all interested in taking on one of these articles? (Full disclosure: this is a bit of a "mass mailing", I'm working my way down the whole list of French-to-English translators.) -- Jmabel 00:08, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

esTotW
Since you put your name down as a spanish to english traslator, and since you are "a delightful multilingual contributor+sj", i thought you might be interested in the new Spanish translation of the week collaboration project. This weeks collaboration is Género chico.(Full disclosure: this is a bit of a "mass mailing", I'm working my way down the whole list of Spanish-to-English translators.)

paz y amor, The bellman 05:27, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wikibooks
Would you please write a bit on the Catalan Grammar in Wikibooks?

Lee S. Svoboda 16:13, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Catalan Language article
Please translate some of the english Catalan language Article into Catalan.

 * I'm not sure I'm enough qualified for this, I'm afraid --apoivre 19:12, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing
Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:
 * Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
 * Multi-Licensing Guide
 * Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the " " template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

 * Option 1
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR
 * Option 2
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions to any U.S. state, county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace " " with "  ". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Spanish Translation of the Week
I would like to revive this project. I noticed that you've added yourself to the list of available Spanish-to-English translators. Are you interested in working on Spanish Translation of the Week? — J3ff 06:09, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ethnic groups
Hi, Apoivre! I just want to drop a quick thank-you note for adding the ethnic groups information to the Russian federal subjects articles. It is going to be way handy when it is those articles' turn to go through the Russian federal subjects WikiProject. Are you planning to update all of them or just some? Also, do you know when the languages census information is going to be available? Again, thanks much!—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 18:32, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

 * Oh, I'm just slowly making my way up my subjects-by-population list. Let's see how far I can go tonight. As to the language info - it's already available at . --apoivre 19:12, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Chechen President Succession Box
Please see Talk:Sheikh Abdul Halim concerning the removal of the succession box for Chechen presidents. Thanks. —thames 17:37, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Kurgan
what "1092 towns in Russia"? There are thousands of towns in Russia. Have you even looked at the link I have given you ? dab (ᛏ) 19:01, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 1 	Kurgan, Kurganskaya, Russia
 * 2 	Kurgan, Amurskaya, Russia
 * 3 	Kurgan, Chukotskiy, Russia
 * 4 	Kurgan, Tul'skaya, Russia
 * 5 	Kurgan, Krasnoyarskiy, Russia
 * 6 	Kurgan, Permskaya, Russia
 * 7 	Kurgan, Novosibirskaya, Russia
 * 8 	Kurgan, Altayskiy, Russia
 * 9 	Kurgan, Altayskiy, Russia
 * 10 	Kurgan, Novogorodskaya, Russia
 * 11 	Kurgan, Altayskiy, Russia
 * 12 	Kurgan, Orlovskaya, Russia
 * 13 	Kurgan, Tverskaya, Russia
 * 14 	Kurgan, Ryazanskaya, Russia
 * 15 	Kurgan, Kaluzhskaya, Russia
 * I have. Only 1092 places in Russia have a town or a city status. If you can read Russian, here is the link . Have a look at all the towns and cities starting with K . Greetings from Moscow --apoivre 18:59, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Russian-to-English translation request
Over at Translation into English there is a request to translate Юдаков, Сулейман Александрович so as to expand Suleiman Yudakov. Would you be able to help out by any chance? Cheers. -- Francs2000 23:48, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Need help for my multilanguage project www.cucumis.org
Hi, I need help for my translation help project. It's a community of translators that help each others. The translations value is evaluated trough a system of points that allows to avoid abuse of the system. The user interface has been translated in many languages with this system, but it's very hard for korean, chinese, vietnamese and north of europe languages. It's a young project and I hope you will like it! Thanks for your help! JP

new collaboration project
You'd you be interested in a participating in a new Collaboration project that aims at translating good and featured articles in the French Wikipedia to English (much likeSpanish Translation of the Week)? I'm trying to see if there's enough users interested in this project before creating it. Thank you. CG 17:34, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

World Citizen userbox,
Hi, I noticed the message saying you're a World Citizen, I would like to invite you to add to your user page if you wish to proclaim it in a more effective way, and this template will also add you automatically to the Wikipedians with World Citizenship category. :) --Mistress Selina Kyle 23:54, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

"orats alpins"
At Berguedà, can you by any chance help with the expression orats alpins: I have semi-decent Catalan, but neither I nor my dictionary know what to make of orats. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * According to the IEC dictionary, orat is boig, not sure if it helps. Oh, and it's an adjective. apoivre 17:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Yuzhno-Kurilsky District, Sakhalin Oblast
Just as an FYI, all cities and towns in Kaliningrad have Russian names along with the German, Polish, and Lithuanian names listed in the intro line. See Sovetsk for an example. I see the Kuril Islands in a similar light—having the Japanese names just makes sense. Anyway, I don't really care if the Japanese names are there or not; I just wanted to explain my reasoning behind my copyedit—obviously someone might need and look for just that information. Take care.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 20:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not against your edits and I know it wasn't you who added that bit. I just don't think any Japanese name should be there at all unless it corresponds exactly to what the article is about, i.e, the district. Sovetsk is a town/city, something tangible, if you wish, and was known as Tilsit for most of its history. Yuzhno-Kurilsky district, however, was definitely created after the islands came under Soviet jurisdiction so it can have no direct counterpart in Japanese unless the imaginary Japanese district that they reserved for it corresponds exactly with the Russian subdivision. If this is the case - which I doubt - this info should go in the last sentence which deals with Japanese claims, NOT in the lead. (Japanese names for Russian administrative subdivisons are about as relevant as Inuit ones would be, if they exist). Most likely, some nationalistic Japanese inserted this bit into the article without actually reading it/seeing what it is about, as they feel it is their duty to do so in every single article in Wikipedia dealing with anywhere Japan happens to claim -apoivre 20:51, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clarifying your point for me; the fact that Russian administrative unit has no direct equivalent in Japanese did not immediately occur to me.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 21:48, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Persian people
Could you take a look at the first sentence in this section? It claims that Persians are descendants of some "Aryan tribes" migrating from Central Asia. Sounds like outdated racial theories to me. The same source (Britannica) says Persians are of mixed ancentry, but when I try to add this in people remove it. I don't think this is consistent with WP:NPOV. Could you take a look at this and leave a comment? Thanks, AucamanTalk 06:43, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Help with Translation
Hi, my name is Ricardo Ramírez, I'm from Colombia and I'm working in the article of Cúcuta. Can you help me to translate it from the Spanish Wikipedia?

 * Cúcuta - Spanish Wikipedia - Click
 * Cúcuta - English Wikipedia - Click

Thanks...

Ricardoramirezj ✍ 15:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

SkyTeam - Wings
I'd be delighted if could explain me what is so gross about calling Wings Alliance a "forerunner" of our cherished SkyTeam? maksdo 04:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Wings was proposed in 1989 when KL and NW started their cooperation across the Atlantic and in Asia (they came up with the name later, I believe). CO (through its links with NW, with the golden share and all) and AZ (through its links with KL before the Dutch payed milllions of euros to get out of that relationship) participated in Wings to a certain degree.

Skyteam was founded in 2001 by AF, DL, AM and KE. AZ joins later on (after KL severed its links with them?). Between 2001 and 2004 ST and Wings are direct competitors. Finally, in September 2004 KL, CO and NW join SkyTeam, rendering Wings Alliance a moot point (even though they still have separate antitrust immunity and Passport to the World - a round-the-world fare on KL, CO, NW, KQ, MH, EK and several other carriers is still being offered along the ST RTW).

Now, what makes Wings a *forerunner* of SkyTeam? --apoivre 14:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Aviation Newsletter delivery
The March 2007 issue of the Aviation WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 18:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Flying Blue
Another editor has added the "prod" template to the article Flying Blue, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but the editor doesn't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and has explained why in the article (see also What Wikipedia is not and Notability). Please either work to improve the article if the topic is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia or discuss the relevant issues at its talk page. If you remove the prod template, the article will not be deleted, but note that it may still be sent to Articles for deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. BJBot (talk) 22:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

An exciting opportunity to improve yourself!
As a member of the Aviation WikiProject or one of its subprojects, you may be interested in testing your skills in the Aviation Contest! I created this contest, not to pit editor against editor, but to promote article improvement and project participation and camraderie. Hopefully you will agree with its usefulness. Sign up here, read up on the rules here, and discuss the contest here. The first round of the contest may not start until September 1st-unless a large number of editors signup and are ready to compete immediately! Since this contest is just beginning, please give feedback here, or let me know what you think on my talkpage. -  Trevor  MacInnis   contribs  05:50, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Self-published book
I'm working on compiling a book containing information about almost all Non-indigenous ethnic groups living or working in Pakistan. The population of a particular ethnic group would be obtain respectively from their diplomatic missions in Pakistan including regions with significant populations, languages spoken and religious affiliations. I'm not very good with writing so it would be great, if you would like to collaborate with me.--116.71.53.25 (talk) 06:01, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia Stories Project
Привет!

Меня зовут Виктор, и я рассказчик с Wikimedia Foundation, некоммерческая организация, которая поддерживает Википедию. Я хроник вдохновляющих историй сообщества Википедии по всему миру, в том числе и читателей, редакторов и доноров. Истории совершенно необходимы для любой некоммерческой органицации, чтобы убедить людей поддержывать наш проект, и мы знаем, что у людей, которые строют и используют Википедии есть много, что рассказать!

Я ищу вдохновляющие страницы пользователей, и интересных историй о том, как Википедия влияют на жизнь людей. Я задавал вопросы вроде "Как Википедия изменила Вашу жизнь?", "Какая самая интересная история у Вас есть о Википедии?" и "Википедия ли когда-нибудь Вас удивило?"

В прошлом году мы использовали ежегодный сбор средств как способ показать миру, кто на самом деле пишет Википедия. Мы показывали редакторов из Бразилии, Украины, Аргентины, Саудовской Аравии, Кении, Индии, США и Англии. Этот метод имел огромный успех, в результате чего у нас была наиболее финансово успешная кампании по сбору средств в историе организации. Кроме того, мы остались верны духу Википедии, просвещение общественности, что это бесплатно ТОП-5 Сайт создан добровольцами, как Ви и я.

В этом году мы хотим выделить еще редакторов Википедии на русском языке, так что я нахожусь в процессе планирования поездки в Россию и интервью с редакторами.

Если Википедия положительно повлеяла на Вас или на кого-то из Ваших знакомых, или у Вас есть что-то интересное сказать о Википедии, я бы очень хотел услышать об этом!

Пожалуйста, дайте мне знать, если Ви бы хотели участвовать в проекте Истории Википедии, или если вы знаете кого-то еще, с кем я должен поговорить.

Конечно, если у Вас есть какие-либо вопросы или сомнения, пожалуйста, обращайтесь! Я отвечу, как только смогу. Извините за плохой перевод этого письма, я использую Google-перевод. Я надеюсь, что заставляет вас смеяться :)

Спасибо за Ваше время,

Victor Grigas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Victorgrigas

vgrigas@wikimedia.org

__________________________________

Hi!

My name is Victor and I'm a storyteller with the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that supports Wikipedia. I'm chronicling the inspiring stories of the Wikipedia community around the world, including those from readers, editors, and donors. Stories are absolutely essential for any non-profit to persuade people to support the cause, and we know the vast network of people who make and use Wikipedia have so much to share.

I'm scouring user pages looking for inspiring, motivating and interesting stories of how Wikipedia has affected the lives of people. I'm asking questions like "How has Wikipedia changed your life?", "What's the most interesting story you have about Wikipedia?" and "Has Wikipedia ever surprised you?"

Last year, we used the annual fundraiser as a way to show the world who it is who actually writes Wikipedia. We featured editors from Brazil, Ukraine, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, India, United States and England. This campaign was a huge success, resulting in the most financially successful fundraising campaign ever. It was also a campaign that stayed true to the spirit of Wikipedia, educating the public that this free top-5 website is created by volunteers like you and I.

This year we want to highlight more Russian-language Wikipedia editors, so I am in the process of planning a trip to Russia to interview editors.

If you or someone you know (or have heard about) has been positively affected by Wikipedia, or have something interesting to say about Wikipedia I'd very much like to hear about it!

Please let me know if you're inclined to take part in the Wikipedia Stories Project, or if you know someone else with whom I should speak.

Of course, if you have any questions or concerns, please ask! I will answer as soon as I can. I apologize for any poor translation of this letter, I am using Google-translate. I hope it makes you laugh :)

Thank you for your time,

Victor Grigas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Victorgrigas

vgrigas@wikimedia.org

Victor Grigas (talk) 22:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:15, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Apoivre