Recognizing The Extraordinary Courage Of Victims And Survivors Of The Holocaust
Auschwitz-Birkenau museum gate from the outside. (Photo by Lāsma Artmane)
(ANALYSIS) Jan. 27 marked the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. The day designated for this remembrance day is no coincidence. On Jan. 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated the biggest Nazi concentration and death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, in then-occupied Poland.
At that concentration camp, over 1 million men, women and children were killed in the most heinous of ways. In 2024, for the remembrance day, the United Nations has been paying tribute to the bravery of all those who stood up to the Nazis, despite the grave risks. The U.N. undertook to honor their legacy with their remarkable stories and history. In the memory of all victims and survivors, the United Nations committed and recommitted to step up its efforts to counter Holocaust denial, antisemitism and racism.
Resistance to Nazi dehumanization had many manifestations. Seemingly ordinary people went above and beyond to claim and restore their human dignity where the Nazi dehumanization was omnipresent.
For the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, the U.N. remembered the story of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, a Bauhaus-trained Jewish artist and educator who brought art materials with her when she was deported to Terezín. Terezín ghetto-camp was a camp incarcerating the elderly, war veterans, prominent Jewish artists, writers, composers, musicians, academics and over 15,000 Jewish children.
As the U.N. tells the story:
“Dicker-Brandeis, along with other adult inmates, courageously resisted the Nazi intent to dehumanize the children. Through clandestine classes, the children were reminded of their ability to create and to imagine. In an increasingly dark and dangerous world, the children were given hope. Tragically, most of the children did not survive the Holocaust. ... In a last act of defiance before being deported, Dicker-Brandeis hid much of the art the children had created. As a result, thousands of drawings and paintings survived the War. They remain vivid testimonies to courage and resistance against dehumanization.”
On Oct. 6, 1944, Dicker-Brandeis and 60 of her students were sent on transport EO 167 to Auschwitz-Birkenau. This is where her story ends, while her legacy lives on.
There were many other wonderful examples of courage of seemingly ordinary people who require attention. Among them is the story of Sir Nicholas Winton, a British stockbroker and humanitarian who helped to rescue Jewish children from the then Czechoslovakia.
Following the horrific atrocities of Kristallnacht in November 1938, which included the killing of at least 91 Jews, arrest of over 30,000 and destruction of 267 synagogues, the British government agreed to allow in some 10,000 children from Germany and Austria on what is now known as the Kindertransport. However, the program did not extend to other countries where Jewish children were at risk, including the former country of Czechoslovakia.
Having visited Prague and having witnessed the dire situation of children, Sir Winton asked the British government to allow some children to come into the U.K. The U.K. ultimately granted the permission, however, with a condition. The condition was that each child was to be matched to a host family who would care for the child until they were 18. Furthermore, each child had to have a guarantee of £50 paid by their family (which in 2024 equates to over USD 3,500). Sir Winton, as assisted by volunteers, worked to find host families and raise the funds to cover travel costs.
Sir Winton successfully evacuated 669 children within a few months. The last train with 250 children was scheduled to leave on Sept. 1, 1939, the day World War II broke out.
The story of Sir Winton and his passionate fight to save children from the Nazis was recently portrayed by Sir Anthony Hopkins, one of Britain's most recognizable and prolific actors. The biopic “One Life” brings closer the unimaginable struggle to preserve life and preserve human dignity when dehumanization was becoming a norm and human life was treated as expendable.
The stories of seemingly ordinary people risking their lives for others, against it all, are stories that we all should know about and draw our inspiration from.
This piece was republished from Forbes with permission.
Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab is a human rights advocate, author and co-founder of the Coalition for Genocide Response. She’s authored the book “Never Again: Legal Responses to a Broken Promise in the Middle East” and more than 30 UN reports. She works on the topic of genocide and persecution of ethnic and religious minorities around the world. She is on X @EwelinaUO.