picturing moral courage
the rescuers PROOF
Media for Social JusticeŠ
During the last twenty years, countries around the world have been torn apart by ethnic, religious, and political violence. Shattered social relations, mutual distrust, unhealed wounds, and narratives of hatred and revenge devastate communities, leaving them vulnerable to future outbreaks of violence. In each violent narrative, however, there are also remarkable stories of ordinary heroes who risk their lives to save members of targeted groups. These stories, unfortunately, are hidden in the rubble of violence and despair, at risk of being lost with the passage of time. “The Rescuers” Project is a peacebuilding program that supports healing and reconciliation in post-conflict countries by recording and highlighting the stories of those who resisted overwhelming prejudice and violence by reaching out to condemned groups. These rescuers are the emblems of hope. “The Rescuers” exhibit includes twenty-one portraits and personal accounts of survivors and those who rescued them from the genocidal killings in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Holocaust Europe. The goal of the exhibit is to raise awareness and promote tolerance, coexistence, and personal commitment to fight injustice.
Truss Menger, Holocaust Photo: Sonia Folkmann
“If we want to live in a world without Holocausts, we will have to create it”1
THE GENOCIDES RWANDA On April 6, 1994, the airplane carrying President Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the President of Burundi, was shot down as it prepared to land at Kigali. Both presidents were killed when the plane crashed. Their deaths were the catalyst that incited the rapid mobilization of Hutu military and militia groups; they quickly began rounding up and killing all Tutsis they could capture. Political moderates were also targeted, irrespective of their ethnic backgrounds. Local officials called on ordinary citizens to kill their neighbors. The killing swiftly spread from Kigali to all corners of the country; between April 6 and the beginning of July, a genocide of unprecedented swiftness officially left over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead at the hands of organized bands of militia: Interahamwe. Josephine Dusabimana, Rwanda Photo: Riccardo Gangale
BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA In July of 1995, Serb troops and paramilitaries led by Ratko Mladic descended upon the village of Srebrenica, systematically killing, raping and deporting thousands of Muslims. After removing thousands of men, they then forced them to march to their death. For those who tried to escape death or decapitation was certain. One example of the systematic mass killings is the abduction and massacre of fifteen hundred people who were locked in a warehouse, sprayed with machine gun fire and grenades. Others were killed on farms, football fields, and school playgrounds. Thousands of the bodies were buried in mass graves and continue to be discovered to this day. Franjo Komarica, Bosnia and Herzegovina Photo: Paul Lowe
THE HOLOCAUST The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and mass murder of approximately 6 million European Jews by the Nazis. In January 1933, the Nazis, who came to power in Germany, believed Germans were “racially superior” to the Jews, who were thought of as “inferior,” and a threat to German Society.
Jan Karel Wijnbergen, Holocaust Photo: Sonia Folkmann
CAMBODIA The Cambodian genocide of 1975-1979, in which approximately 1.7 million people lost their lives, was one of the worst human tragedies of the last century. The Khmer Rouge regime, led by Pol Pot, combined extremist ideology with ethnic animosity and a diabolical disregard for human life to produce repression, misery, and murder on a massive scale. Hang Romny, Cambodia Photo: Nicolas Axelrod
About PROOF PROOF: Media for Social Justice uses photography and narratives to deepen awareness and understanding of the presence of rescue behavior during genocide or mass violence. Our goal is to show how to better understand the conditions that support compassionate behavior in the face of communal violence. Our work focuses on individuals whose lives have been dramatically altered by violence or genocide: rescuers who cross the lines of hatred to save the lives of neighbors and strangers; survivors of atrocities; fragile societies; and child soldiers coerced into committing acts of horror. PROOF believes that in a world racked with recurring mass violence and widespread human rights crises, we need to know more about those who act.
PROOF
Media for Social Justice©
Office 202, 171 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 proof.org Photos: Riccardo Gangale (Rwanda); Sonia Folkmann (Holocaust); Nicolas Axelrod (Cambodia); Paul Lowe (Bosnia & Herzegovina). 1 Oliner, S. B., & Oliner, P. (1988). The altruistic personality: Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe. New York: Free Press.
“In that moment, I didn’t think of my neighbors. I only had one thing on my mind: to save him. That he stay alive.” Hasan Jusovic, Rescuer, Bosnia and Herzegovina Photo: Paul Lowe