Those who tried to protect human dignity under Soviet totalitarianism can be called
Righteous. Yet, these Righteous differ from those who risked their lives to rescue
those persecuted during a genocide. It is indeed difficult to find people who could
take action in a context of terror and strict ideological conditioning, not only in public
but also in private life.
When facing concentric blackmails from the surrounding environment, those who resisted had to work hard to avoid harming others. Helping others was rarely a direct and quantifiable action. Yet, it would be wrong to say that, in Soviet totalitarianism, there were no rescuers nor rescued. The mechanism clicked when an individual chose to resist the blackmails of power and to not be corrupted; when, in other words, he or she refused to become a link in the chain of violence against others.