The World Entire: A True Story of an Extraordinary World War II Rescue

By Elizabeth Brown, illustrated by Melissa Castrillón. Chronicle Books, 2025. 64 pages. $19.99/hardcover; $11.99/eBook.

As a Holocaust educator for ten years, I was very familiar with the stories of those who risked their lives to rescue Europe’s Jews from the horrors of the Holocaust: of brave people like Oskar Schindler, Nicholas Winton, Raoul Wallenberg, and Irena Sendler. Elizabeth Brown’s wonderfully told and beautifully illustrated book brings to light the story of another unsung hero of that dark time: Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes, someone who may, in fact, have rescued more Jews than any of these more famous heroes.

The story begins before the war. Aristides lived with his family in a small town in Portugal, where people knew each other and cared for each other. From there, he would sometimes travel to France where, as a diplomat, his job was to approve visa applications for those who wished to travel to Portugal. From his home base in Bordeaux, Aristides, through his job, could interact with everyone from regular families and businessmen to ambassadors and presidents.

Then the Second World War came to France. Suddenly the country was flooded with refugees from across the continent, all desperate to escape the Nazis. Since the dictator in Spain was a fascist, they saw Portugal as “their last hope.” However, the leadership in Portugal wished to remain neutral, and so diplomats like Aristides were ordered “not to give visas to anyone hoping to escape.”

Day after day, more and more refugees lined up outside his office in Bordeaux to get a precious visa, only to have their requests declined. Then Aristides met with a rabbi who told him what would happen to the Jewish refugees who could not escape the Nazis. After wrestling with his conscience for three days, he made a fateful decision: he refused to comply with his government’s orders and issued visas to anyone who needed one. In doing so, he put his life and the lives of his family at terrible risk (at one point, he led a long line of refugees across the border between France and Spain), for which he later paid a significant price. But in the process, he rescued thousands of people, including the artist Salvador Dalí.

This powerfully crafted tale is enhanced by some of the most beautiful illustrations I’ve seen in a children’s book in quite some time. Readers will want to return to this book to find the tiny details on each page that they might have missed in previous readings. But each re-reading will be worth it, as they will be reminded of the story’s themes of community, loyalty to one’s conscience, and courage.

The book takes its title from the Talmud, which tells us: “He who saves a single life saves the world entire.” How then, do we describe the actions of someone like Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who risked everything to save not a single life but so many? At another time when real heroes seem few and far between, when courage in the face of evil seems increasingly difficult, this story is one that needs retelling over and over again, as a reminder of what words like “hero” and “courage” really mean.

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David Austin is a member of Medford (N.J.) Meeting and lives in Marlton, N.J. He is a retired history teacher and Holocaust educator. His middle-grade novel in verse recounting of the true story of a Holocaust survivor, Small Miracle: A Holocaust Story from France, is available from Fernwood Press.