nearly 80 years ago the streets of
bordeaux were gripped with panic
thousands of jewish refugees were
desperate to leave before the COS topo
arrived and the roundups began their
main escape route was to cross neutral
Spain
to Portugal but to do this they needed
Spanish transit visas in the Spanish
government that told the representatives
aboard
therefore including my father that they
couldn't give any visas without sending
the passport to Madrid what days yes
yeah so it was undoable so he decided
that morally right thing to do was to
disobey his government and began issuing
these visas right and left to everybody
coming in there
my grandfather Eduardo
defying orders opened the consulate
doors and for a whole week
day and night incessantly signed visas a
few steps away from here your
grandfather signed the passports
permitting four members of my family to
cross into Spain and through to Portugal
and get about to the United States in
June 1942 of these passports survived
all right
and so I have brought my father's who
sadly left us a few months ago I'm
hearing here is a little boy what was
his name
mission we share valence key we should
balance key there he must be something
like three three years old and here you
can read the signature of your
grandfather that's amazing
prepareathon he had incredibly neat
handwriting I loved it the fact he made
it all one yes but I guess if you're
signing many many many you'll make it
all one way then here's a my homie ran
mother's that's your granny mother
that's my grandmother okay Zoey yeah
there we have a resemblance they were
all Polish Jewish yes yep they went to
France and they were there in spring of
1940 and then they escaped at the last
minute basically because not only was my
great-grandfather Jewish he was
personally blacklisted by the Gestapo
because he was prominent anti appeaser
I've noticed they already had to get out
yes I wonder how many people didn't get
out I got the Portugal that's the way it
looked out they got on a boat and there
he is my father in New York City with
his grandfather during the war
amazing he founded UNICEF after really
how extraordinary yes and my grandmother
and your grounding the war yes
goddess fantastic I wonder how many of
our jewelers thank God so I've never
you're the first person I met who had
direct yeah who's directly who heard
this basically had alive because of my
grandfather one of the things that I've
lost and thought about when thinking
about Holocaust is how much was
destroyed but then the tiny consolation
prizes and you made one life that was
saved and that was a great family to
have saved because he goes the
grandfather then goes and invents UNICEF
and she now works good mid-surface on
France yeah so there's it's almost like
one humanitarian act then breeds a whole
the whole genealogy or whole a whole
tree of other humanitarian acts which is
great
you