Casa do Passal / Museu Aristides de Sousa Mendes is located in Cabanas de Viriato, in the municipality of Carregal do Sal. It was the family residence of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese consul in Bordeaux who issued visas and consular documents to refugees fleeing Nazi persecution in 1940.

Casa do Passal and the Consul of Bordeaux

Aristides de Sousa Mendes was born in 1885 and died in 1954. During the German invasion of France, thousands of refugees gathered in Bordeaux seeking a route out of Europe. Many were Jews threatened by Nazi persecution. As Portuguese consul, Sousa Mendes could issue documents that allowed refugees to cross Spain, enter Portugal and reach Lisbon.

On 11 November 1939, the Salazar regime issued Circular 14. This instruction restricted the issuing of visas to several categories of refugees, including Jews, stateless people and others considered politically undesirable by the Estado Novo. In June 1940, Sousa Mendes chose to disobey. He issued thousands of visas and authorizations against the orders of his government.

Casa do Passal belongs to the history that followed that decision. The house was the residence of Sousa Mendes for about 45 years and also received refugees carrying documents issued by him. After his punishment by the Estado Novo, Sousa Mendes lost his diplomatic career, lived in poverty and died in official disgrace. The contents of Casa do Passal were sold, and the house itself was later sold at public auction after his death.

From Ruin to the Museu Aristides de Sousa Mendes

The building remained abandoned for decades. Since 2001, Casa do Passal has belonged to the Fundação Aristides de Sousa Mendes. In 2020, the Foundation ceded the building to the Municipality of Carregal do Sal through a loan-for-use agreement, allowing the municipality to assume responsibility for its rehabilitation, management and musealization.

Casa do Passal was classified as a National Monument in 2011. Its importance is not only architectural. It is connected to one of the most significant acts of rescue carried out by a Portuguese diplomat during the Second World War.

Today, the building houses the Museu Aristides de Sousa Mendes, inaugurated on 19 July 2024. The requalification and musealization project was designed by the architects Pedro Azevedo and Susana Rosmaninho, from Rosmaninho+Azevedo. The curatorship was developed by the historian Cláudia Ninhos. The museography was produced by Cariátides and United by.

Permanent Exhibition and Jewish Memory

The permanent exhibition is organized through nine thematic rooms. It presents different dimensions of Aristides de Sousa Mendes’ life, the stories of families saved through his documents, the context of the Second World War, the Holocaust, the refugee crisis, the orders of the Estado Novo and the decision to disobey.

The museum also functions as a documentation, education and memory space. Its mission includes the study, documentation, conservation, interpretation and public presentation of the legacy of Aristides de Sousa Mendes. It also preserves the memory of refugees, victims of the Holocaust, Righteous Among the Nations and the moral questions raised by the Shoah.

For Jewish memory, Casa do Passal / Museu Aristides de Sousa Mendes is connected to rescue, visas, exile and survival. It links Cabanas de Viriato to Bordeaux, Vilar Formoso, Lisbon and the wider geography of refugee escape during the war.

On 18 October 1966, Yad Vashem recognized Aristides de Sousa Mendes as Righteous Among the Nations.