The most prominent trend in Holocaust commemoration worldwide over the past two decades is the establishment of museums and exhibitions dealing with the stories of non-Jews who saved Jews from extermination, according to a Tel Aviv University study released on Tuesday.
The annual report cites the two main Holocaust remembrance museums in Japan, which commemorate Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who saved hundreds of Jews; the main Holocaust commemoration museum in Latvia, which focuses on the figure of the Righteous Among the Nations Jānis Lipke, who exploited his work in the German air force to save hundreds of Jews and hid Jews in a bunker he built under his home at the risk of his life; and the May 2025 opening of the “Museum of the Survivors” in the Czech Republic, built on the ruins of the factory in which Oskar Schindler employed about 1,200 Jews and brought about their rescue.
Additional examples highlighted in the report include museums and exhibitions in Tennessee, Bulgaria, China and the United Arab Emirates.
In Tennessee, a new exhibit at the local university deals with the legacy of American prisoner of war Roddie Edmonds, who refused a Nazi order to identify and separate Jewish prisoners of war from the rest of the soldiers. In Shanghai, an exhibit at the “Jewish Refugees Museum” focuses on the work of the Chinese diplomat Feng Shan Ho, who issued life-saving visas to Jews. In Bulgaria, the reconstructed home of the former deputy speaker of parliament, Dimitar Peshev, is open to the public, and visitors learn about the actions he took to prevent the deportation of 48,000 Jews in Bulgaria in March 1943.
“The spotlight turned toward the Righteous Among the Nations is welcome—as a lesson in humanity, in humanism, and in the ability of individuals to rebel against tyranny and do good,” said Tel Aviv University professor Uriya Shavit. “But it is important that the story of the Righteous Among the Nations be learned in context, and not as a blurring of the past. Rescuers of Jews were the very rare exception during the Holocaust.”
Carl Yonker, the author of one of the articles in the report and the Project Manager of the Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, said: “Educators need to ensure that students arrive at museums and exhibitions that focus on the Righteous Among the Nations only after they have received significant guidance on the history of antisemitism, of Nazism, and of the Holocaust. It is more convenient for educators to deal with the good rather than the bad, but there is a real concern that the focus on rescuers will blur the harsh historical reality.”
