Early in 1940, thousands of refugees fleeing the invading Nazi armies poured into Bordeaux, hoping to reach neutral countries like Spain and Portugal.
Their rulers, Franco and Salazar, not wanting to offend Hitler, instructed their embassies and consulates not to issue visas. Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, defied Salazar's orders and signed thousands of visas, thus rescuing the asylum-seekers, many of them Jewish, from the Nazis. Fralon depicts de Sousa Mendes as a man whose whole upbringing had taught him to obey authority. Yet, after wrestling with his conscience for three whole days and nights, he threw caution to the winds and signed as many visas as he was physically capable of before being summoned back to Lisbon and disgrace.
(Penguin, £6.99)
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