Luiz Martins de Souza Dantas

Luiz Martins de Souza Dantas (Luís… de Sousa…, in modern orthography; 17 February 1876 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 14 April 1954 in Paris, France) 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. His actions were not limited to saving Jews but others, such as communists and homosexuals.

Luis Martins de Souza Dantas was serving as the Brazilian ambassador to France and to the Vichy Government during the German occupation. Despite complaints and investigations into his activities by other Brazilian diplomats as well as the tightening of Brazilian immigration laws regarding Jewish immigration, he was motivated by "a Christian feeling of mercy" to save hundreds from persecution by the Nazis by issuing diplomatic visas for entry into Brazil.

After being ordered to stop issuing these visas, he would often forge the issue date to a date prior to the order. He would also remove any mention of Jewish ancestry from the applicant's history. Unlike other diplomats at the time, Souza Dantas did not grant visas for personal gain or to a select group. In a 1942 letter to Brazil's foreign minister Oswaldo Aranha, he said the camps set up by the Nazis were like something out of Dante's Inferno, where Jews were either slaves or were exterminated. Among those he helped save were the 12-year-old Felix G. Rohatyn, a future investment banker, and the Rohatyn family.

An investigation was opened by the administrative department of the public service in charge of Embassador Dantas. He was accused of granting irregular visas. In an Itamaraty telegram, Souza Dantas affirmed in his defense that after the prohibition he did not grant "even a visa". It was a lie. Chana Strozemberg, a woman from Poland, obtained a visa issued in January 1941, a month after the prohibition, but with false information.

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