We'll plant five new trees in the Garden of the Righteous to honour men and women who have been able to oppose totalitarianism and denounce genocides. Discover who these figures are through books and movies.
ROMEO DALLAIRE In his capacity as UN General in Rwanda he tried everything possible to denounce the ongoing genocide.
•The book: Romeo Dallaire, Shaking hands with the devil: the failure of humanity in Rwanda, Random House, Canada, 2003
Romeo Dallaire's self-biography.
•The movie: R. Spottiswoode, Shake Hands with the Devil , Canada, 2007
JAN KARSKI
Unheeded courier of the Polish Resistance, he turned to the greatest world's powers to denounce the extermination of Jews without being believed.
•The book: Yannick Haenel, The Messenger, The Text Publishing Company, 2011
"Jan Karski was a World War 2 Polish Resistance fighter whose 1942 mission was to witness the Warsaw Ghetto and a concentration camp first hand, and then to report to the Allies what he had seen the industrially organised genocide of the Jews in Poland. He was to be the messenger of their fate and in his hands were their hopes of rescue.
But history confirms that the message was delivered but never heard, the lack of its impact haunted Jan Karski for the rest of his life".
•The movie: Claude Lanzmann, Shoah, France, 1985
SOPHIE SCHOLL
Through the association "The White Rose" she tried to make German youths aware of the dangers of Nazism and was sentenced to death.
•The book: Jud Newborn, Annette Dumbach, Sophie Scholl and the White Rose, Oneworld Publications, 2006
A detailed chronicle of the story of the young female student who tried to awake Germany's conscience.
•The movie: Marc Rothemund, Sophie Scholl, the Last Days, Germany, 2005
The story of a courageous group of university students who opposed Hitler's dictatorship.
ALEKSANDR SOLZENICYN
The Literature Nobel Laureate whose words made the world aware of the horror of Gulag.
•The book: Ronald Berman, ed., Solzhenitsyn at Harvard: The Address, Twelve Early Responses, and Six Later Reflections. Washington, D.C.: Ethics & Public Policy Center, 1980
Of particular interest are the speeches "Live not by lies!" given by the dissident writer before his arrest and "A world split apart" where he criticized the USA for being decadent and indifferent to the Russian plight.
•The movie: Caspar Ward, One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, Norway/GB, 1971.
The film is a chronicle of 24 hours spent in a Stalinist Gulag where the political prisoners are forced to do terrible work amidst hunger, cold and torture. Drawn from the famous 1962 tale by Aleksandr Solženicyn.
ARMIN T. WEGNER
He denounced the Armenian genocide and was the only German intellectual to dare write a letter to Hitler against his antiJewish policies.
•The book: VV.AA., Armin T. Wegner and the Armenians in Anatolia, Guerini e Associati, Milan, 1997
The bilingual book is about the documentary exhibition about the German intellectual that was presented in Milan in 1995. It gathers letters, pieces of testimony and images of a forgotten genocide.
•The movie: Carlo Massa, Destination: nowhere. The witness, documentary, production: Istitute Museum of Armenia Genocide - Armenia, 1996
Documentary telling about the massacre of the Armenians through the testimony left by Armin Wegner. Starring his son Mischa and the Honorary Consul of Armenia to Italy Mr. Pietro Kuciukian.