Portugal and the Holocaust: research and memory

In December 2019, Portugal became a member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and, in line with the organization's mission, made a greater commitment to promoting education, remembrance and research on the subject.

The year 2020 was an opportunity to celebrate several Holocaust-related anniversaries: the eightieth anniversary of the rescue of thousands of men, women and children, many of them Jewish, by the Portuguese Consul in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes; the seventy-fifth anniversary of the start of the Nuremberg Trials; the seventy-fifth anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter and the creation of the United Nations (UN); and the sixtieth anniversary of Portugal's admission to the UN.

In this context, Holocaust Remembrance was the subject of Council of Ministers Resolution no. 51/2020, of June 25, and its program includes a set of initiatives to strengthen knowledge, preserve memory and disseminate it.

With the Holocaust and its conceptual framework as a reference point, the aim is to promote scientific research, developing new knowledge in various areas from a multidisciplinary perspective, with contributions from history, philosophy, human rights, religious studies, political science, law, sociology, literature, the arts, in short, with developments in the social sciences and humanities, reinforcing their presence on the national scientific agenda.

The special support was intended for the following lines of research:

• The actions of the Portuguese who stood out in various areas, namely: in supporting the victims of Nazi persecution and extermination policies; in the life journeys of the Portuguese victims of the Nazi concentration camp during the Second World War; in the role of Portuguese diplomacy, where the figure of Consul Aristides de Sousa Mendes stands out; in the actions of journalists, taking into account their influence in shaping public opinion; and in the cultural representation and interpretation that arose from all these events.
• Study of the various factors that contributed to both inhumane practices and individual and collective acts of self-sacrifice and solidarity (political, ideological, social, cultural, religious, economic, etc.) in the context of the Holocaust.
• Archival processing, digitization and study of Portuguese documentary collections relating to the aforementioned themes.
• Provision of educational resources, in physical or digital format, including the creation and production of artistic content that highlights the importance of knowledge and memory of the Holocaust in the field of education, particularly in education for citizenship.
• Collaborative research that promotes best practices in knowledge exchange, public engagement and the impact of research on this topic.

Recipients of support

Higher education institutions and their institutes, state laboratories and other public research institutions, scientific societies or non-profit scientific associations, public or private non-profit institutions, which may apply individually or in partnership.

Results

FCT has published a brochure presenting the 6 projects selected under the special support for R&D projects "Portugal and the Holocaust: research and memory", which is available in digital format.

A project presentation session was held at the Palácio das Galveias Library on November 25, 2021, which can be viewed here.