About the Family

The RAND family received visas from Aristides de Sousa Mendes in Bordeaux on June 18, 1940.

Three of the family members (Gerhard, Luisa and Moses, visa #s 2079, 2080 and 2081) are listed in the surviving visa registry book for Bordeaux. The visa for the fourth family member, Wolf (visa #83 issued in Bordeaux on the same date as the others) is not recorded in the surviving visa registry book, but is evidence of a second, now lost, visa registry book.

The RAND family crossed into Portugal and subsequently sailed on the ship Quanza, bound from Lisbon to New York and Mexico, in August 1940. However, many of the refugees were forbidden to disembark when the ship docked in Veracruz, Mexico. When the vessel stopped to refuel in Norfolk, Virginia, Wolf RAND brought a lawsuit against the shipping company, resulting in the passengers being rescued and allowed into the United States.