An unlikely hero which during WWII managed to save the life of many Jews in the occupied France.

1. Posted by:Hamid Kiabi
Eliane Cohanim was sevenyears old when she fled France with her family.
She remembers clutching her favorite doll and lying as still as she could, pretending to be asleep,
whenever their train came to a halt at a Nazi checkpoint. "I remember everywhere, when we were
running away, they would ask for our passports, and I remember my father would hand them the
passports and they would look at them. And then they would look at us. It was scary. It was very, very
scary."
Mrs Cohanim and her family were part of a small, close-knit community of Iranian Jews living in and
around Paris. Her father, George Senahi, was a prosperous textile merchant and the family lived in a
large, comfortable house in Montmorency, about 25km (15.5 miles) north of the French capital.
'Trembling'
When the Nazis invaded, the Senahis attempted to escape to Tehran, hiding for a while in the French
countryside, before being forced to return to Paris, now in the full grip of the Gestapo.
"I remember their attitude. The way they would walk with their black boots. Just looking at them at that
time was scary for a child, I think," recalls Mrs Cohanim, speaking from her home in California. Like
others in the Iranian Jewish community, Mr Senahi turned for help to the young head of Iran's
diplomatic mission in Paris.
"At the borders, my father was always really trembling," recalls Mrs Cohanim but, she adds, he was a
"strong man" who had given the family "great confidence that everything would be OK."
An Unlikely Hero
Abdol-Hossein Sardari was born in Tehran in 1914 into a wealthy aristocratic family. His mother
neglected him and his alcoholic father who was of little help, died when his children were still very
young. Often ostracized by his mother, he was sent off to an English boarding school at the age of eight
where he received a traditional English education and in time became a trusted protégé of Iran's envoy
in Switzerland. He enrolled at the University of Geneva, received a doctorate in Law, was admitted into

2. the Iranian Foreign Service and proved himself masterful at getting things done. By the time WWII
broke out, Sardari had become a competent diplomat with a natural talent for mastering languages. He
is said to have spoken English with the flair of an English gentleman, German with the refinement of a
Swiss litigator, and French with the accent of a cultured Parisian. Although often away from Iran since
early childhood, his associates attest to his fluency in Persian, familiarity with Persian poetry and his
remarkable Persian hand writing.
Assigned to the consular section of the Iranian Legation in Paris, he found himself unexpectedly
charged with the responsibility of protecting Iranian interests in occupied France. Amiable and
gregarious, Sardari was a member of the Qajar Royal Family that had ruled Iran until 1925. He was a
charming bachelor with an uncommon gift for socializing in general and entertaining his guests in
particular.
Sardari had the key to the legation’s safe where some 5000 blank passports were commonly stored.
After having secured the safety of fellow Iranians, he issued documents for others, generally
recommended by his trusted Jewish friends. German archival documents suggest that Sardari had
managed to exempt 2,400 Jews from Nazi racial laws. That number is considerably greater than the
entire Iranian Jewish population residing in France at the time.
He had numerous female companions, but one clearly stood out. The classically trained Chinese opera
singer whom he affectionately called Tchin-Tchin was the only woman with whom he wished to share
his life. Tchin-Tchin was beautiful, artistic and sociable. But she was also alone and in the midst of
World War II separated from her home and family. Ironically, the one person to whom he was
romantically committed suddenly disappeared from his life without a trace.


3. Sardari avoided discussing his experiences of the war years. He might have wished to forget the horrors
of the period or perhaps was too modest. He had always had friends of various nationalities, French,
German, Swiss, English, American and Iranian. He had consistently rejected the urge to simplify
relations into “us versus them.” He understood deeply life’s many predicaments. He rejected ideologies
so fashionable in the 30s, 40s, and 50s that sought to erase all ambiguity in human loyalties.
Having struggled to blunt the sharp edges of intolerance and rejection he had faced, he would not be
intolerant himself. Although he shunned accolades, he was prosecuted after the war for having
allegedly over-stepped his authority. He died alone, broken, and destitute. His life ended far away from
the woman he had loved, the country he had served, and the friends he had cherished.
He was posthumously recognized for his humanitarian work in 2004 at a ceremony at the Simon
Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.
This article meant to illustrates the "general cultural propensity of Iranians to be tolerant" which is
often overlooked in the current political climate.
The title of this article along with supporting text are part of an excellent book written by Dr. Fariborz
Mokthari.

4. The interested reader might find another book: "THE CHILDREN OF TEHRAN" written by Mikhal
Dekel. The book tells the story and the odyssey of more than hundred thousand Polish Jews escaping
the Nazi on the march and traveling through Soviet Union and arriving in Iran.