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The latest discovery in George Santos’ long record of deception suggests that Santos may have lied about being Jewish and about his family fleeing Europe amid the persecution of Jewish people during World War II.
According to a new report, archival records show both of Santos’ maternal grandparents – who he claimed “fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium, and again fled persecution during WWII” – were born in Brazil. Neither of them appear in Brazilian immigration cards in the 1930s or 1940s, and neither appear in multiple other databases which list European Jewish refugees. Additionally, a family tree researched by Santos’ relative confirmed that “the family does not have Ukrainian or Jewish roots.”
Throughout his campaign, Santos regularly employed the narrative of being a descendant of Jewish refugees, yet has refused to answer questions this week about the truth of his grandparents’ heritage.
It’s worth noting that George Santos was recently highlighted as a “special guest” at a far-right convention flooded with white nationalists, conspiracy theorists, and dangerous far-right extremists.
DCCC Spokesperson Nebeyatt Betre
“It’s beyond despicable for any candidate to try to use the horrors of World War II and the persecution of Jewish people to advance their own political ambitions. Someone who would lie to Long Island voters like this is simply unfit to serve. It’s well past time for Santos to stop hiding and to tell the truth for once.”
Read key excerpts of the report:
Forward: Congressman-elect George Santos lied about grandparents fleeing anti-Jewish persecution during WWII
By Andrew Silverstein
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Congressman-elect George Santos’ emotional narrative of having Jewish grandparents who fled Europe during World War II appears to be untrue, like much of the rest of his campaign biography, according to genealogy websites reviewed by the Forward.
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Santos, a Long Island Republican, has said that his father was Catholic and his mother was Jewish, and that both faiths “are mine.” The very first line of the “About George” page on his campaign website states: “George’s grandparents fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium, and again fled persecution during WWII.”
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But the website myheritage.com lists Santos’ maternal grandparents as having both been born in Brazil before the Nazis rose to power — his grandfather, Paulo Horta Devolder, in 1918, and his grandmother, Rosalina Caruso Horta Devolder, in Rio, in 1927. An online obituary for Santos’ mother, Fatima Aziza Caruso Horta Devolder, who died in 2016, says she was born in Niterói, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro, on Dec. 22, 1962, to Paul and Rosalina Devolder.
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Fatima’s own Facebook page, which has photos of her with Santos and tags his page, has no mentions of the words “Jew” or “Jewish,” nor the terms Yom Kippur, Shabbat or Israel in English or Portuguese. But four of the seven pages she “liked” were for Catholic groups, and another was for a Brazilian priest and singer.
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She regularly shared posts with Catholic themes and images of Jesus, including one eight months before her death from a Brazilian Christian group, Tarde com Maria (Afternoons with Maria), that says in Portuguese: “The cross of Christ for some is a symbol of defeat, for us it is a symbol of salvation.” Another adapts a quote from Genesis, “There’s an angel today, delivering from all evil.”
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Santos’ campaign did not respond to the Forward’s email inquiries on Tuesday regarding the false statements about his grandparents’ birthplaces and backgrounds. On Monday, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that Santos did not return emails sent to multiple addresses or messages sent through a number of social media platforms, and that his sister and lawyer also did not reply to email messages.
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“Whether my mother’s Jewish background beliefs, which are mine, or my father’s Roman Catholic beliefs, which are also mine, are represented or not,” he said, “I want to represent everyone else that practices every other religion to make sure everybody feels like they have a partner in me.”
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But it appears Santos is not Jewish — and lied about his family fleeing persecution during the war.
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Neither of his maternal grandparents appear in Brazilian immigration cards in the 1930s or 1940s, or in the databases of Yad Vashem or the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which list European Jewish refugees.
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A second family tree on the French genealogy website Geneanet, created by Gea Sierdsma, a distant Dutch relative of Santos, corroborates Paulo’s parentage and birthplace. This tree includes several photographs of Leonard the engineer, and the group shot at the top of this article. Sierdsma, who researched the family’s lineage in archives in Antwerp, confirmed by email that the family does not have Ukrainian or Jewish roots.
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