Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a Righteous among the Nations (LS-PT-738)

Introduction

This learning scenario is dedicated to Aristides de Sousa Mendes – a just man among nations – a Portuguese diplomat in Bordeaux, France, during the Second World War. A diplomat who, against the express orders of the Portuguese dictator Salazar, decided to issue thousands of visas in conscience to thousands of refugees persecuted by the German invaders.

The heroic act of Aristides de Sousa Mendes is essential as a reminder of the importance of humanism and the dangers that arise from intolerance, hatred, xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination.

Implementation

This LS was implemented in my school with students between 14 and 15 years old in History, integrated into the curriculum theme “World War II”, having as a sub-theme the Holocaust and the just between nations, highlighting the personality of Aristides de Sousa Mendes.

This is a learning scenario built to be developed between the discipline of History in a direct and fruitful collaboration with the school library, enabling the development of collaborative work, based on research, collection, processing of information and creating knowledge, embodied in the creation of digital final products.

Conclusion

Students developed a project about the Second World War and the figure of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, in the course of implementing this learning scenario, made jointly between the History subject and the school library team. During implementation, the theme of the Holocaust and the Second World War was explored in greater depth, creating a portfolio of thematic resources, which was later made available to the whole community through the school library’s resource platform.

Would you like to know more about this learning scenario? You can download it below:

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Public Domain Mark 1.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Universidade Aberta.