Apr

30 2014

Disobedience | JCC Rockland Film Festival

7:30PM - 10:00PM  

AMC Theatres - Palisades Center Mall 1000 Palisades Center Drive
West Nyack, New York 10994

http://www.jccrockland.org

Contact Hani Sandler
845-362-4400
hanis@jccrockland.org

Disobedience: The Sousa Mendea Story In June 1940, when Nazi troops invaded France, an amazing rescue operation sprang into being. One man, on his own, defying the direct orders of his government, chose to grant visas out of Occupied France to an estimated 30,000 refugees including around 10,000 Jews. This remarkable true story has been described by historians as 'the largest rescue action by a single individual during the Holocaust.' The man was Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese Consul. Founded in 2010, the Sousa Mendes Foundation is dedicated to honoring the memory of Aristides de Sousa Mendes and to educating the public about refugees and rescue during the Holocaust; and is engaged in a worldwide search for families who escaped the Holocaust through Portugal. Our guest speaker for this film Harry Oesterreicher is a co-founder of the Sousa Mendes Foundation, based in Seattle. His father and grandparents received lifesaving visas from Aristides de Sousa Mendes in 1940, enabling them to escape from occupied France via Portugal. He is dedicated to researching the identities of other rescued families, and to sharing information about this little known diplomat, honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.