Aracy de Carvalho Guimarães Rosa
Encyclopedia
Aracy de Carvalho Guimarães Rosa, née Aracy Moebius de Carvalho, (December 5, 1908 – February 28, 2011) was a Brazilian diplomatic clerk who has been recognized with the title of Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....

.

Early life

Born to a German mother in Rio Negro, Paraná
Paraná (state)
Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...

, Aracy de Carvalho was able to speak German, English, and French. She moved to São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

. She lived there with her German first husband Johannes Edward Ludwig Tess and their child until 1935, when they separated.

Humanitarian Work

In 1936, she was appointed to the Brazilian Consulate in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, Germany, where she was made the Chief of the Passport Section. She started to help Jewish people during Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...

, on November 9, 1938. She handed out visa
Visa (document)
A visa is a document showing that a person is authorized to enter the territory for which it was issued, subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry. The authorization may be a document, but more commonly it is a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport...

s to Jews without the red "J" that identified them as such, since Brazilian Dictator Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas served as President of Brazil, first as dictator, from 1930 to 1945, and in a democratically elected term from 1951 until his suicide in 1954. Vargas led Brazil for 18 years, the most for any President, and second in Brazilian history to Emperor Pedro II...

 non-officially denied visas to Jews. She was in very close relations with underground
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...

 activists in Germany and would even grant visas to Jews she knew that had forged passports.
In 1938 she met fellow diplomat and assistant-Consul João Guimarães Rosa
João Guimarães Rosa
João Guimarães Rosa was a Brazilian novelist, considered by many to be one of the greatest Brazilian novelists born in the 20th century. His best-known work is the novel Grande Sertão: Veredas...

, who would later become her second husband, and one of the most important Brazilian writers. With his help, she intensified her humanitarian activity, saving a great number of Jews from imprisonment and death. She remained in Germany until 1942, when Brazil broke relations with Germany and joined the Allied Forces.

Recognition

On July 8, 1982, Aracy de Carvalho became one of the two Brazilians honoured by the Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....

 with the Righteous Among the Nations award, together with Ambassador
Ambassador
An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....

 Luiz Martins de Souza Dantas
Luiz Martins de Souza Dantas
Luis Martins de Souza Dantas 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...

.

Death

Aracy de Carvalho suffered from Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...

. She died at the age 102, in São Paulo, on February 28, 2011, due to natural causes.
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