Visas For Life

This week, we'll look at extraordinary diplomats on Yad Vashem's Righteous Among the Nations honor roll, who defied their governments' authorities by issuing visas to save the lives of thousands of refugees, including desperate Jewish refugees, fleeing the Nazis and Europe during WWII. 

You have to understand that diplomats are, by and large, people who are very good--I dare say exceptional--at following rules and orders.  They don't let rebels into these very powerful positions of representing their governments abroad.  Disobedience is virtually unheard of.

That is, until WWII.  Consulates were swarmed with refugees who knew that piece of paper or a stamp called a visa was the only thing standing between certain death and a chance of survival.   These visas would allow them to cross borders and escape being hunted down.  These diplomats had to make the difficult choice between the obvious "abuse" of their governmental authority or abandonment of thousands of men, women, and children to their hunters.  Not many did, but a few, just a few, found the courage to choose life.  The United Nations estimates that 200,000 lives were saved between 1938 to 1945 by these diplomats.

Additional information:
Eighteen diplomats honored as Righteous Among the Nations
Diplomat Heroes of the Holocaust 
United Nations:  "Visas for Life:  The Righteous Diplomats "
Visas For Life:  Righteous and Honorable Diplomats