Porfirio Smerdou: Malaga's Mexican 'Schindler'

In March 2019 Villa Maya in Malaga's Limonar district was demolished. It was once the home of Porfirio Smerdou Fleissner, an honorary Mexican consul in Malaga.

Smerdou was born in 1905 in Trieste. His father, José Smerdou Bosich, had been Mexico's first diplomatic representative in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When the Mexican Revolution broke out, the family left Austria and arrived in Seville after a tour of other European cities. In 1914 the family moved to Malaga and his father became the city's honorary Mexican consul.

On 1 January 1931 when his father retired, Porfirio Smerdou was appointed honorary consul of Mexico with jurisdiction in Eastern Andalucía and the Spanish protectorate of Morocco.

The young consul devoted himself to promoting his country's image and tourism, participating in radio programmes, publishing nearly a thousand articles in the press - through the Arco International Agency - organising cultural and festive events, and increasing his contacts with the Andalusian intellectual, political and social elite.

He participated in the formation of the Malaga Consular Corps, the Economic Society of Friends of the Country, the Rotary Club and other associations like the Fraternity Masonic Lodge.

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936, Porfirio Smerdou carried out extensive humanitarian work, saving the lives of numerous people threatened with death by the Republican repression and he sheltered 150 of them in his own Villa Maya, the headquarters of the Mexican consulate in Malaga.

Recognised by the Republic, he was a friend of the poets of the generation of '27 and he has been described as Malaga's 'Schindler'.

In 2023 Porfirio Smerdou, who died in El Escorial in May 2002, was awarded the posthumous distinction of adopted son and medal of the city of Malaga. The distinction was presented to his grandson, Cristian Smerdou.