March 3, 2023 h.10
Celebrations for the new Righteous
Milan Garden of the Righteous Worldwide
In 2012, the European Parliament accepted Gariwo's call to establish March 6 as the European Day of the Righteous, which then became a civil solemnity in Italy in 2017.
In Milan, the ceremony to lay the new plaques and deliver parchments to the Righteous is on March 3 at 10 a.m. at the Milan Garden of the Righteous together with representatives of the new honored Righteous and the Association for the Garden of the Righteous of Milan.
This year's theme is: “Saving the Humanity in Humankind. The Righteous and personal responsibility”.
We chose to honour with new plaques at Milan Garden: Gareth Jones, a Welsh journalist, he was the first one who documented Holodomor, clashing with Western indifference and Soviet censorship until his mysterious death; Alfreda “Noncia” Markowska, a Roma woman, during Porajmos she lost her family but risked her life to save as many Roma and Jewish children as possible from extermination; Hersch Lauterpacht, a British jurist, he placed individuals at the core of the law and fostered the idea of personal responsibility in the face of inhumane orders in Nuremberg; Akram Aylisli, an Azeri writer, he denounced the violence of his country against Armenians and supported the dialogue between the two peoples, which he paid being “exiled” in his own land.
Can we still believe in humankind after the Shoah, the Gulag, the genocides of the 20th century and with a new war in Europe? It is a question we often ask ourselves. But it is also the question of Vasily Grossman, author of Life and Fate. His answer is in some ways paradoxical: evil cannot be eliminated from history since it comes with the temptation of Good. This was the appeal of totalitarian ideologies that convinced many men to kill in the name of building a paradise on earth. Yet, Grossman argues, evil never succeeds in changing human nature and suppressing the yearning for freedom inherent in human hearts.
This means that even in the face of extreme violence, the humanity in humankind cannot be eradicated. No form of violence, however strong and perfect it may be, can subjugate the force of life. A life can be taken, certainly, but it is not enough: even if life dies, it is still not defeated.
The people who helped Jews during World War II never thought of winning the war against Nazism, but simply acted, independently of the political context, so that their lives would not be corrupted by evil.
This is the secret of the Righteous, and we remember it on a special anniversary: the first 20 years of Milan Garden of the Righteous Worldwide.
This “secret” is revealed in the stories of people who save lives, denounce the horror of genocides, promote dialogue between peoples despite arrests and threats, and act so that the first signs of evil do not result in new exterminations.