前情提要：Max (Sarah的爸爸)和Hilda (Sarah的媽媽)在比利時與兩個女兒會面了，下一步就是護衛好家人，並且遠離有納粹的歐洲，但是要怎麼做呢？
當Max決定要讓全家人在一起，並且儘早離開納粹會到的地方，在比利時待了一年後，Max帶著家人搭火車到法國的一個天主教小村莊，當地的農民非常友善，看到這些可憐的猶太難民來到村莊，不但收容了他們，甚至神父憐憫這些可憐的人，即便他們抵達的那天是天主教傳統上不能夠吃肉的週五，還特別煮肉給他們吃！在戰爭時期提供肉給難民吃是個特別善良的行動，當然他們不知道猶太人不能吃豬肉，即便在患難時期猶太人也是不吃豬肉，所以大多找藉口推辭掉了。接下來Max一家和其他猶太家庭在這個小村莊的葡萄園做農活和居住，就連Sarah當時已經8歲的姊姊Susan也都有送午餐的工作。
好景不常，幾個月後來了一些法國警察，把所有的猶太男人都逮捕了。
Hilda和其他婦女到警察局去，用法文抗議說：「放我們的男人走！他們是清白的！他們在工作！」
這些法國警察或許只是照章行事，也搞不清楚為什麼要逮捕猶太男人，幾個小時後警察決定放人，而這是Hilda第二次把她的丈夫從監牢裡救出來。
而這也讓Max知道又必須離開了。
他們從法國又輾轉到不同地方，剛好在波爾多受到一個叫做索薩·門德斯(Aristides de Sousa Mendes)葡萄牙的外交官幫助，得到了進入葡萄牙的「生命」簽證。這個外交官很特別，在第二次大戰時間，他利用他的職位，發送生命簽證給正在逃離納粹德國的歐洲難民，作為天主教徒的他說：「我想與神同工，而不是跟敵對神的人童工。」但葡萄牙政府發現他不斷發送簽證後，撤銷他的職位。(1966年時以色列大屠殺紀念館Yad Vashem頒發「國際義人」的榮譽給這位外交官，感謝他在大屠殺時期冒著生命危險救了3萬人，其中有1萬名猶太人)
戰爭當時還沒有波及到葡萄牙，當Max因為有了葡萄牙簽證而帶全家逃到葡萄牙。Max一家花了2.5年從德國逃到葡萄牙，到了葡萄牙後，Hilda懷了第三胎，這讓Max更確定一定要趕快離開歐洲。他每天跑一個大使館，就為了可以拿到一張離開歐洲的簽證，因為所有的大使館都拒絕給他簽證。直到幾週後的一天，或許是因為他有當過鑽石切割的學徒，他在古巴大使館得到了簽證！只差船票一家人就能離開歐洲了！
他們真的就這樣全家人逃離歐洲了嗎？
圖：Sarah的古巴簽證 
“Ep07 From Europe to Cuba”
Previous story summary: Max (Sarah’s father) and Hilda (Sarah’s mother) reunited with their two daughters in Belgium. The next step was to protect the family and stay away from the Nazis in Europe, but what could they do?
Max made a decision that the family would never separate from each other and they would get out from any country invaded by Nazis. After staying in Belgium for a year, Max took his family to a small Catholic village in France by train. They arrived on a Friday when the Catholics were banned from eating meat. But the Catholic priest pitied these poor Jews who came to take refuge, and provided them a nice meal with meat! It was an extra kind deed to give meat to the Jews. Of course, they would not know the dietary laws of Jews and the meat they had was pork. Even in times of trouble Jews didn’t eat pork. So most of them found excuses and refused. The Max family and other Jewish families worked and lived in the vineyard in this small village. Even Sarah’s 8-year-old sister Susan also had the job of delivering lunch for the men.
This peaceful life didn’t last long, a few months later some French police came and arrested all the Jewish men from the village. Along with other women, Hilda went to the police station again, protested in French: “Let our men go! They are innocent! They are working!”
Perhaps the French police were just following the rules, and they didn’t know why they should keep the Jewish men arrested. After a few hours, the police decided to let them go. This was the second time Hilda has rescued her husband from prison.
This event told Max that he had to leave again. They traveled from France to different places and happened to be in Bordeaux where they received the help of a Portuguese diplomat named Aristides de Sousa Mendes. With his help, Max obtained a “life” visa to enter Portugal. This diplomat was very special. During World War II, he used his position to give life visas to European refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. As a Catholic, he said: “I want to work with God, not with people who work against Him. ” But the Portuguese government revoked his position after discovering that he kept giving away visas. (In 1966, Yad Vashem awarded the honor of “Righteous of Nations” to the diplomat, thanking him for risking his life during the Holocaust and saving 30,000 people, including 10,000 Jews)
The war had not reached Portugal yet, and the visa allowed Max to take his family there. It took Max 2.5 years fleeing from Germany to Portugal. In Portugal, Hilda became pregnant with her third child. This made Max even more determined to leave Europe as soon as possible. He went to different embassies every day just to get a visa to leave Europe, but they all rejected him. After weeks of trying, perhaps because of his experience as a diamond cutter, he got a visa from the Cuban embassy! The whole family could now leave Europe with just a ticket away!
Did the whole family manage to flee Europe?
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