Abdol Hossein Sardari | |
|---|---|
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| Ambassador of Iran toBelgium | |
| In office 2 October 1945 – 1 October 1948 | |
| Monarch | Mohammad Reza Pahlavi |
| Preceded by | Abdollah Bahrami |
| Succeeded by | Mostafa Samii |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1914 |
| Died | 1981 (aged 66–67) |
| Relatives | Amir Abbas Hoveyda (nephew) Fereydoun Hoveyda (nephew) |
| Alma mater | University of Geneva |
| Occupation | Diplomat |
| Righteous Among the Nations |
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| By country |
Abdol Hossein Sardari (Persian:عبدالحسین سرداری; 1914–1981) was an Iranian diplomat.[1] He is credited with saving thousands of Jews inEurope, issuing to Iranian Jews in France new passports that did not state their religion as well as issuing hundreds of Iranian passports for non-Iranian Jews.[2] He has since been known as "The IranianSchindler"[3][4][5][6][7] or "The Schindler of Iran".[8]
Sardari was born in 1914 inTehran to a well-to-do aristocratic family[1] ofAzerbaijani descent.[9] His mother, known as Afsar-Saltaneh, was a niece ofNaser al-Din Shah Qajar (r. 1848–1896).[1] His father was Soleyman Adib-ol-Saltaneh.[1] His parents had four sons and three daughters, with Sardari himself being the second youngest son.[1] When he was eight years old, he was sent to a boarding school in England.[1] Sardari then moved toSwitzerland where he studied law atUniversity of Geneva, graduating with a law degree in 1936.[1] During his time in Switzerland, he entered the Iranian Foreign Service in that country.[1]
Sardari was the uncle of Iranian prime ministerAmir Abbas[10] and diplomatFereydoun Hoveyda.
Sardari became an Iranian diplomat inParis in 1937.[10][1] As theHolocaust struck, which eventually led to the crippling of the embassy, he decided to remain in Paris while many of his colleagues in the embassy fled toVichy, France (a safer city at the time). TheNazi invasion of France also led to the departure of Iran's ambassador in Paris, who was Sardari's brother-in-law, which led to the affairs of the embassy being left to Sardari.[3][4][5][6][11]
Sardari was in charge of the Iranian consular office in Paris in 1942. There was a sizeable community ofIranian Jews in Paris when German forces invaded and occupied the city.
Leaning on the national socialist perception that Iranians wereAryan,Nazi Germany had also declared Iranians to be immune to allNuremberg Laws since 1936, as they were "pure-blooded Aryans" according to their racial theory.[12] The Iranian government underReza Shah was able to protect Iranian Jews, whose families had been present in Iran since the times of thePersian Empire. (Cyrus the Great personally ordered the Jews of Babylon to be freed from Babylonian slavery.) He very strongly argued this point to the Germans and specifically ascertained that the Iranian Jews were protected under these statutes. The Nazis grudgingly agreed, and accordingly, many Iranian Jews were saved from harassment and eventually deportation by the Nazi regime.[7]
Once he realized the full nature of the Nazi's ambitions, Sardari began issuing hundreds ofIranian passports for non-Iranian Jews to save them from persecution. To safeguard his plan, he did not ask for permission, and felt that support by the Iranian leadership was implied. His actions were later confirmed and applauded by the government of Iran.[13] Sardari helped roughly 1,000 Iranian Jewish families escape the Nazi-occupied country, as well as many non-Iranian Jews.[3][5][4][6]
Sardari's first step to help Iranian Jews in France was to issue them with new passports that did not state their religion. He helped around 2,000 Jews obtain passports. Ibrahim Morady, an Iranian Jewish merchant that was saved by Sardari, stated that Sardari was asked by Iran's Foreign Ministry to return to Iran. Sardari refused to leave the Jews behind and feared that they would be deported. He began issuing hundreds of Iranian passports for non-Iranian Jews as well, to protect them from the Nazis. In hopes of protecting them from persecution, Sardari issued passports and signed affidavits for as many Iranian and non-Iranian Jews as he could.[3][4][5][6][11]
Sardari was determined to free the Iranian Jews and get them out of France immediately. He did so by making use of his political position. He argued that the Iranian Jews did not belong to Hitler's "enemy race" - that they were not Jewish and that they were in fact "Djougoutes" (a fabricated race of Muslim Iranians). He argued that they were not of Jewish descent and that in Iran they have the same civil, legal, and military rights and responsibilities as Muslims. As it turned out, many senior Nazis in Berlin agreed with this. Though Sardari formulated this argument in hopes of sparing the Iranian Jews, he did just as much to help non-Iranian Jews escape the horrors of the war.[3][4]
His efforts to help the Jews of France went as far as hiding their belongings for them. When the Germans attacked France, Sardari told a man who went by the name of Haim Sassoon that he would hide the Jewish man's antiquities in the embassy or the basement of his own house during the war. When the Germans were no longer in France, Sardari called Mr. Sassoon and said to him, "You could now come and collect your belongings”.[3][4]
When World War II ended, Sardari worked inBrussels,Belgium for the Iranian Diplomatic Corps.
Later in life, his lover, Tchin Tchin (Chiao-Yen Chow), was aChinese opera singer.[10] She disappeared during theChinese Civil War in 1948 when she travelled to China to receive a blessing from her parents to marry Sardari.[citation needed]
In 1952, Sardari had to return to Tehran, Iran and was charged with misconduct for issuing Iranian passports during the war. Consequently, his career was damaged until he was able to restore his reputation in 1955. Shortly thereafter he retired from the Iranian Diplomatic Corps and moved to London. Following theIranian Revolution of 1979, Sardari's nephew Amir Abbas Hoveyda was executed by the new Islamic regime, and all of his belongings in Iran were destroyed.[citation needed]
He resided inNottingham at the end of his life and died in London in 1981.[4][10]
Sardari has been honored by Jewish organizations such as the convention in Beverly Hills[clarification needed] and theSimon Wiesenthal Center on multiple occasions.[14][4][10] In April 1978, three years before his death, Sardari responded to the queries ofYad Vashem, theIsraeli national Holocaust Memorial, about his actions in this way: "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."[15] However his name has not yet been added to the Yad Vashem garden of the righteous.[16] According to Milikh Yevdayev, the leader of theMountain Jewish Community of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Sardari "was cut from Azerbaijani cloth, made of courage and love for brotherhood that makes religion or ethnicity irrelevant".[9]
The 2007 Iranian TV seriesZero Degree Turn (Madare sefr darajeh) was loosely based on Sardari's actions in Paris. The focus of the series is an Iranian student who falls in love with a Jewish woman while studying in France duringWorld War II and later desperately looks for ways to save her and other Jews from the imminent threat of deportation.[17][18]
In 2023 it was announced that Abdol Hossein Sardari would feature in an exhibit within the upcomingFortnite Holocaust Museum.[19]
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