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Historic Figures Who Set Out to Save Jews From the Holocaust

Khalid Elhassan December 15, 2020 32 min

Hanns Albin Rauter - World War II — A Dutch Resistance cell during WWII. For God and Country

30. This Diplomat Continued His Mission to Save Jews Despite Getting Stripped of Diplomatic Immunity and Being Recalled by His Government

Iran’s monarch, Reza Shah, had been friendly toward the Third Reich. Too friendly for the British and Soviets, who launched a joint invasion in 1941 that deposed Reza, and replaced him with his son. The new Iranian government ordered Sardari to return, but he insisted on remaining in order to save as many Jews as he could, using his own money to maintain the Paris embassy. In 1942, the German Foreign Ministry stripped Sardari of diplomatic immunity. He still stayed in the Paris embassy, and continued to churn out passports and visas to save as many Jews as he could.

Sardari returned to Tehran in 1952, and was charged with misconduct for issuing passports during WWII. It was a serious career setback, and he was eventually forced to retire. He moved to Britain, where he spent the rest of his life, dying in obscurity in 1981. He never sought recognition for his deeds. In 1978, he responded to an inquiry from the Israeli Holocaust Memorial with the simple statement: “As you may know, I had the pleasure of being the Iranian Consul in Paris during the German occupation of France, and as such it was my duty to save all Iranians, including Iranian Jews“.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.