Luis Martins de Souza Dantas (Rio de Janeiro, 1876 - Paris, 1954) was a Brazilian diplomat who was awarded the Righteous Among The Nations by the Israeli Supreme Court in June 2003 for his participation during the Holocaust in helping Jews in France escape. It is estimated he saved 800 people, 425 confirmed to be Jewish. His actions were not limited to saving Jews but other people considered undesirables according to Nazism, such as communists and homosexuals.
Luis Martins de Souza Dantas was serving as the Brazilian ambassador to France and to the Vichy Government during the German occupation. Despite complaints and investigations into his activities by other Brazilian diplomats as well as the tightening of Brazilian immigration laws regarding Jewish immigration, he was motivated by "a Christian feeling of mercy" to save hundreds from persecution by the Nazis by issuing diplomatic visas for entry into Brazil. After being ordered to stop issuing these visas, he would often forge the issue date to a date prior to the order. He would also remove any mention of Jewish ancestry from the applicant's history. Unlike other diplomats at the time, Martins did not grant visas for personal gain or to a select group.
In a 1942 letter to Brazil's foreign minister Oswaldo Aranha, Souza said the camps set up by the Nazis were like something out of Dante's Inferno where Jews were either slaves or were exterminated.
Among those he helped save were the 12 year old Felix G. Rohatyn, a future investment banker, and the Rohatyn family.[1]
An investigation was opened by the administrative department of the public service in charge of Vargas. He was accused of granting irregular visas. In an Itamaraty[2] telegram, Souza Dantas affirmed in his defense that after the prohibition he did not grant "even a visa". It was a lie. Chana Strozemberg, a woman from Poland, obtained a visa issued in January 1941, a month after the prohibition, but with false information.[3]
Eventually the investigation and suspicions of Luis Martins de Souza Dantas were enough for him to be recalled by Getúlio Vargas, the Brazilian President of the time, where he faced disciplinary hearing for his actions. He was found guilty of breaking the Brazilian Jewish immigration policy. He was able to escape punishment since he was technically retired and only working for the government on special request.
After the war he returned to Paris where he died in obscurity on April 14, 1954.