ADL Pays Tribute to ‘Mexican Schindler’ for helping save 40,000
The story "ADL Pays Tribute to ‘Mexican Schindler' for helping save 40,000" describes an event where the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) honored the former Mexican diplomat Gilberto Bosques Saldivar who saved over 40,000 Jews from the Holocaust. Saldivar was compared to Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg, two other non-Jews who helped Jews during the Holocaust. As Mexican consul general, Saldivar sheltered Jewish refugees, provided visas and chartered ships for others to escape to Africa. He and his family were arrested and detained for a year. The ADL presented his daughter with the Courage to Care award for her father's selfless efforts to help Jews in dire circumstances.
Other Resources:
Gilberto Bosques Saldivar biography
Courage to Care: Gilberto Bosques Saldivar
- Why do you think the ADL thought it was important to recognize Saldivar's actions? Why should we remember these stories? What can we learn from them?
- At the ceremony Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League said, the generosity [of rescuers] is "difficult to comprehend because they frequently risked everything, including the lives of their families, to help people who...they didn't know at all." How do you explain why at times of great risk, some people act to help while other don't take action?
- The concept of "universe of responsibility refers to the individuals and groups we feel obligated to protect and support - the people about whom we care. (This phrase is built on the psychologist and scholar Helen Fein's "universe of obligation"). In this story, how does Saldivar define his universe of responsibility? What factors influence your universe of responsibility? Under what circumstances might it change?
- How might the choice to save strangers be different from the choice to rescue people you know? A non-Jew to save Jews? What does this say about Saldivar?
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