Jerusalem, 27 January, 2026 (TPS-IL) — As the world marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a new report released on Tuesday warns that a growing global emphasis on stories of non-Jews who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, while morally valuable, risks blurring the historical reality of widespread antisemitism, collaboration, and mass murder at a time of resurging hatred.
The annual “For a Righteous Cause” report, published by Tel Aviv University’s Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, examines trends in Holocaust commemoration, Jewish heritage preservation, and the fight against antisemitism worldwide. The 104-page study identified what it describes as the most prominent development in Holocaust remembrance over the past two decades: a sharp rise in museums and exhibitions centered on the Righteous Among the Nations.
“Righteous Among the Nations” is an official designation by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust remembrance authority, honoring non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. To qualify, individuals must have actively helped Jews escape persecution, deportation, or murder, done so at personal risk, received no financial reward, and have their actions verified through survivor testimony or reliable documentation. Those recognized receive a medal and certificate, and their names are inscribed on the Wall of Honor at Yad Vashem.
To date, more than 28,000 people from over 50 countries have been honored.
Dr. Carl Yonker — who authored the report’s central article and is the Center’s project manager — told The Press Service of Israel of a troubling tendency to favor morally uplifting narratives over confronting the brutality of history. The shift to emphasize heroes has accelerated in the past year as institutions across Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East increasingly stress individual acts of moral courage rather than the broader systems of persecution and genocide.
“Any museum, exhibit, or educational materials on the Righteous Among the Nations should emphasize and make clear the heroism and virtue of these individuals was the exception and not the rule,” he told TPS-IL. “It must also highlight the fact that the Holocaust is mainly a story about human cruelty and criminality, not one of heroism and virtue.”
Examples cited include Japan, where the country’s two principal Holocaust remembrance museums focus on Chiune Sugihara, the diplomat who issued visas that saved hundreds of Jews; Latvia, where the main Holocaust museum centers on rescuer Jānis Lipke; and Czechia, where the “Museum of the Survivors” opened in May 2025 on the site of Oskar Schindler’s factory, combining an exhibition on Schindler with survivor testimonies.
Additional cases include exhibits in Tennessee honoring American prisoner of war Roddie Edmonds, a Shanghai exhibition on Chinese diplomat Feng Shan Ho, and a reconstructed home museum in Bulgaria dedicated to Dimitar Peshev, who helped prevent the deportation of 48,000 Jews in 1943.
While welcoming the attention paid to rescuers, the report repeatedly cautions that this narrative carries educational and moral risks if presented without sufficient historical context.
“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 Prof. Uriya Shavit, head of the Center. “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.”
Yonker told TPS-IL the trend first became apparent during his research into how Japan remembers the Holocaust through the figure of Sugihara. “Aware of the museums and special exhibitions in the Czech Republic, UAE, and Latvia, and further research into the US and Bulgaria, a trend was identified,” he said to TPS-IL. The United Arab Emirates became the first Arab country to begin introducing Holocaust education into its curriculum in 2023.
The report’s policy recommendations reflect these concerns, calling on Israel’s education system to require that every classroom study the story of one Righteous Among the Nations ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, but only within a broader framework that prioritizes teaching the history of antisemitism, Nazism, and genocide.
Another major article in the report analyzes France’s recent decision to establish July 12 as a national day commemorating the 1906 exoneration of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. While French President Emmanuel Macron hailed the move as “a victory of justice and truth against hatred and antisemitism,” the report argues that the affair remains deeply contested and continues to mirror unresolved debates over French identity.
“For France, the Dreyfus Affair has served as a drama through which the country can test its ideals of justice, equality and citizenship, and the distance between those ideals and reality,” Yonker told TPS-IL, adding that renewed engagement with the affair reflects contemporary anxiety over antisemitism.
January 27, the anniversary of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp’s liberation by Soviet soldiers in 1945, was designated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day by the United Nations. Six million Jews in Europe and North Africa were systematically killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.
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