North County Resident and WWII Survivor Lee Sterling To Speak After Inspirational Film of Holocaust Rescue

The SDJFF movie, Disobedience: the Sousa Mendes Story, tells the true story of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese Consul General stationed in Bordeaux, France, during World War II. His government had issued strict orders to all its diplomats to deny visas to refugees seeking to escape Occupied Europe through Portugal. Sousa Mendes defied these orders and issued Portuguese visas to an estimated 30,000 people in May and June of 1940 in an operation described by the Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer as “perhaps the largest rescue action by a single individual during the Holocaust.”

A Great Humanitarian Punished by His Government - While Those He Saved Flourished.

The rescued families ended up in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Israel, Australia and elsewhere across the globe and began new lives, while Sousa Mendes himself was put on trial by the Portuguese government for “disobedience” and was harshly punished. Some visa recipients were, or became, famous, such as the painter Salvador Dali and the authors of the Curious George series, Hans and Margret Rey. But most were ordinary families escaping the horrors of Nazi persecution.

After the showing, Lee Sterling, a Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce Director, and Encinitas Resident who received a visa from Sousa Mendes, will talk about how Sousa Mendes saved his family after they escaped from Belgium when the Nazi forces invaded on May 10, 1940. Sterling, a Director of the Sousa Mendes Foundation, said that the Foundation is dedicated to “spreading the concepts of humanity and courage, exemplified by Sousa Mendes.”

Saturday, February 8, 2014, at 7:00 p.m. [There will be a reception, starting at 6:15 p.m.,  prior to the showing of the movie for all ticket holders.]

Carlsbad Village Theatre, 2822 State Street, Carlsbad

Sunday, Feb 16, 2014, at 1:00 PM at Clairemont Reading Cinemas, 4665 Clairemont Drive, San Diego, and Sterling will speak there as well.

Order tickets by phone at (858) 362-1348 for $10.50 plus a service charge of $1.50, using the code: CCOC14, or purchased at the door for $13.00.

For more information contact:

Lee Sterling

Director-Sousa Mendes Foundation

lee@leesterling.com

760-230-1492