Comassis

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Comassis, short for Comissão Portuguesa de Assistência aos Judeus Refugiados, was a humanitarian group based in Lisbon during World War II. Its mission was to help Jewish refugees passing through Portugal. Faced with anti-Semitic persecution in Eastern Europe and the rise of Nazism in the 1930s, Ashkenazi Jews began arriving in Portugal. They integrated into Portuguese society and the local Jewish community, which provided crucial support.

The organization started as the Portuguese Commission for Assistance to Refugee-Jews in Portugal (COMASSIS), led by Augusto Isaac de Esaguy, with Adolfo Benarús as Honorary Chairman. In 1937 Benarus published a book praising Portugal’s lack of anti-Semitism, and the honorary president of Lisbon’s Jewish community claimed that “happily in Portugal, modern anti-Semitism doesn't exist.” After the 1938 Anschluss, Portugal saw more refugees; Benarus, then 75, stepped down as president and Esaguy, who had been secretary-general since 1933, became president and remained so through 1945.

COMASSIS provided medical and psychological care, and spoke for refugees with the Portuguese government to secure residence and work permits. It helped renew doctors’ and lawyers’ licenses and obtain university positions for professors. The organization also ran a kitchen, gave medical aid, temporary housing, and legal assistance.

In September 1939, Esaguy helped move over 600 German Jews who were stranded in Spain through Portugal toward destinations like Cuba and Mexico. In 1940 Esaguy and Moisés Bensabat Amzalak helped Luxembourgish Jews deported from Luxembourg reach Portugal after the Zwangstransporte. Beginning in January 1941, COMASSIS coordinated for thousands of refugees arriving in Lisbon on sealed trains from Nazi-occupied Europe, sometimes more than 50 people at a time, providing lodging, visas, and liaising with shipping companies and authorities. In just the first three months of 1941, more than 1,600 refugees passed through Lisbon this way. The 1940 annual report of HICEM praised Esaguy’s energetic work, and today COMASSIS is remembered as one of the most important Jewish-led relief efforts in Portugal during World War II.