Acts of courage out of genocide
DURING the Holocaust and more recent genocides in Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda, ordinary people have stood up against brutal authorities to save their neighbours and friends.
It is these heroic people who are honoured in an exhibition of photos and stories titled The Rescuers, which has toured the US and other countries and comes to Australia this week to the Jewish Holocaust Centre (JHC) in Melbourne.
The exhibition is the brainchild of Leora Kahn, founder and executive director of Proof: Media for Social Justice based in New York, who believes that education is the key to peace-building and genocide-prevention.
The Rescuers contains photographs that document the Holocaust, as well as genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia. While the subject matter is grim, the focus is on those who stood up to the brutal oppression; ordinary people who risked everything to help others.
“We want to show that not everybody participated in the genocide and there were many courageous, ordinary people who stood up against the authoritarian government and risked their lives,” Kahn says by phone from New York.
“Using photos is a powerful way of getting the message across. Photos make it very real. These people are ordinary people who stood up and said they were not going to do this and were going to save their neighbour and friends.
“The circumstances that they experienced were horrible, but the experiences of them saving were very uplifting. These are positive stories. It’s an unusual way of looking at things, but we focus on the positive.”
Kahn is an award-winning curator, educator, filmmaker, photographer and photo editor. She has worked for publications such as The New York Times Magazine, People and Time magazines, Rolling Stone and The New Yorker.
Five years ago, she teamed up with another photographer to establish Proof as a non-profit organisation and has worked on global projects with Amnesty International, Human Rights First and the United Nations.
Kahn says a theatre production is based on the testimonies of the rescuers is still in the planning stage and hopes that it will be performed next year.
There are also plans to make a documentary film about the rescuers to be narrated by Ben Affleck.
The Rescuers will be opened by John Searle, chair of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, on July 25.
There are 16 panels of photos and stories in the exhibition, which launches a month-long series of lectures, discussion sessions and films as part of JHC’s public education program to combat racial intolerance. Kahn will present several lecturers relating to rescuers and genocide.
The Rescuers exhibition is at the Jewish Holocaust Centre, 13 Selwyn Street, Elsternwick, Melbourne from July 25 to August 22. Enquiries: www.jhc.org.au.
REPORT by Danny Gocs
PHOTO of exhibition curator Leora Kahn.
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