On This Day: March 6th

The European Day of the Righteous is a celebration,established in 2012 by the European Parliament, to commemorate those who have stood up against crimes against humanity and totalitarianism with their own moral responsibility.

The concept of Righteous (or Just) is broadened to all cases of genocide and forms of totalitarianism thanks to the commitment of Moshe Bejski – a Polish-born Israeli Supreme Court Justice and President of Yad Vashem's Righteous Among the Nations Commission; he survived the Holocaust with the help of Oskar Schindler. In 1961, he testified about his experiences during the Holocaust during the trial of Adolf Eichmann. As President of the Righteous Commission from 1975 to 1991, Bejski helped honour thousands of Holocaust rescuers.

The European day of the Righteous is celebrated every year on 6th March, the anniversary of Bejski's death.

Support for the Day came from a hundred prominent Italian and European personalities of the world of culture, including Umberto Eco, Dario Fo, Daniel Goldhagen, as well as important institutions such as the Presidency of the Republic of Poland, the Václav Havel foundation, the association Libera founded by father Luigi Ciotti and many other influent entities from all over Europe.

The Written Declaration, presented in January 2012, includes aims such as:

• Recalling the institutions that have honoured people who saved lives during all genocides and mass murders (such as the Armenian, Bosnian, Cambodian and Rwandan ones) and the other crimes against humanity perpetrated in the 20th and 21st centuries.
• Recalling all those who preserved human dignity during Nazism and Communist totalitarianism.
• The remembrance of good is essential to the process of European integration because it teaches younger generations that everyone can always choose to help other human beings and defend human dignity, and that public institutions have a duty to highlight the example set by people who managed to protect those persecuted out of hate.

To mark the Day of the Righteous, people are encouraged to visit a garden, lay a flower, leave a dedication...

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.