The Portuguese Mission of Portugal to the UN confirmed that Carlos Almeida Afonseca de Sampayo Garrido, Ambassador Plenipotentiary for Portugal in Budapest, 1944, has finally been recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem earlier this year. The IRWF honored both Sampayo Garrido and his charge de affairs Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho in 2006.
Dr. Garrido helped large numbers of Hungarian Jews who came to the Portuguese diplomatic mission in 1944 seeking Portuguese protection. Along with Branquinho, they rented houses and apartments to shelter and protect refugees from deportation and murder. Garrido was instrumental in establishing the policy for the protection of Portuguese Jews in Hungary. In May 1944, he was reposted to Switzerland and on several occasions intervened on behalf of Jews from his post in Switzerland. Branquinho remained in Budapest where he established an office of the Portuguese Red Cross at the Portuguese legation to care for Jewish refugees.
Read about that event here.
