Aristides de Sousa Mendes - Early Life

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. His ancestry included a notable aristocratic line: his mother, Maria Angelina Ribeiro de Abranches de Abreu Castelo-Branco, was a maternal granddaughter of the 2nd Viscount of Midões. His father, José de Sousa Mendes, had been a Judge on the Supreme Court; and his twin brother, César, would become Foreign Minister in 1932–33, during António de Oliveira Salazar's regime.

Sousa Mendes and his twin studied law at the University of Coimbra, and each obtained his law degree in 1908. In that same year, Sousa Mendes married his childhood sweetheart, Maria Angelina Ribeiro de Abranches (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 diplomatic career that would take him and his family around the world. Early in his career, he served in Zanzibar, Kenya, Brazil, and the United States before being assigned to Antwerp, Belgium, in 1931. In Belgium, he met Nobel Prize winners Maurice Maeterlinck and Albert Einstein. After almost ten years of dedicated service in Belgium, Sousa Mendes was assigned to the consulate of Bordeaux, France.