A new report from Tel Aviv University finds that Holocaust remembrance efforts worldwide are increasingly centered on the stories of non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews, a shift researchers say has accelerated in the past year.
Released ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the 104-page “For a Righteous Cause” study by the Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry surveys global initiatives to preserve Jewish heritage, commemorate the Holocaust, and confront antisemitism. Its authors identify a clear pattern: museums and exhibitions across continents are elevating the narratives of the Righteous Among the Nations as a primary lens for remembrance.
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Examples cited span Europe, Asia, the United States, and the Middle East. In Japan, Holocaust museums highlight diplomat Chiune Sugihara. Latvia’s main memorial site centers on Jānis Lipke, who hid Jews in a bunker beneath his home. In Czechia, a museum opened in May 2025 at the former factory where Oskar Schindler saved about 1,200 Jews now pairs his story with survivor testimony. Exhibitions in Tennessee feature American POW Roddie Edmonds, while Shanghai’s Jewish Refugees Museum spotlights Chinese diplomat Feng Shan Ho. Visitors in Bulgaria tour the restored home of Dimitar Peshev, credited with preventing the deportation of 48,000 Jews in 1943.
Prof. Uriya Shavit, head of the center, said, “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. 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.”
Dr. Carl Yonker warned, “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.”
The report also examines France’s decision to mark July 12, the date of Alfred Dreyfus’s exoneration, as a national day, noting that the affair still fuels debate over the Republic’s identity. Other sections explore King Charles III’s ties to Judaism, Judaica stamp collecting, and renewed Israeli interest in Stefan Zweig.