Jesse B. Jackson was the American consul in Aleppo, Syria during the Armenian genocide. He saved thousands of Armenians by helping them escape from the Ottoman authorities and was instrumental in organizing the relief effort for refugees.
Credit: Harris and Ewing, 1955.

In 1915, Mehmet Effendi saved many members of the Piloyan family from death. He hid them for six months until the Armenian deportations in Malatya stopped, keeping the family in his house and employing the male members of the family in his factory.
Credit: From the Collection of Ovsanna Chitjian/Zaruhy Chitjian.

While the governor of the Diyarbakir province in Turkey organized the ruthless removal of the Armenians in his region, some of his officials resisted. The Mayor of the city of Lice, Huseyin Nesimi Bey, was one official who refused to deport the Armenians. While his refusal saved 5,980 people, it ultimately led to his murder in June 1915.
Credit: Arbeitsgruppe Anerkennung.

On Easter day 1915, Turks began imprisoning Armenian children in Talas, Turkey. Rebecca Avedikian was first spared because she was in a dormitory, sick with scarlet fever, before being hidden by missionaries. In her testimony, Avedikian speaks of the help she received and those who offered her sanctuary.
Credit: Zoryan Institute of Canada.

Raoul Wallenberg, first secretary of the Swedish delegation in Hungary, saved thousands of Hungarian Jews between July and December 1944. Being a diplomat allowed him to legally issue certificates of protection that claimed their Jewish owners were Swedish citizens.
Credit: Thomas Veres, http://sharingsweden.se/toolkits/raoul-wallenberg-exhibition/.

Living in Poland, Barbara Makuch found her own form of resistance during the Holocaust. She saved Rebecca Litowicz before joining the Zegota underground, which helped Jews by providing food, medical care, relief money and false identity documents to those in hiding.
Credit: CJCCCNA, MHMC.

Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants (Children’s Aid Society) rescued thousands of Jewish children during the Second World War. Elzbieta and Celinka Zilberbogen, featured in this photograph, were among the children hidden by the OSE in various locations in southern France.
Credit: MHMC

Var Ashe Houston escaped to Thailand with her daughters in 1979, just as the Khmer Rouge began to fall apart. She would have been deported back to Cambodia if not for a British relief worker, who insisted that she be brought to a nearby hospital instead. She eventually immigrated to England, where she now lives.
Credit: Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

Arthur and Miriam Lermer and their child were granted this visa by Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese consul in Lithuania during the early 1940s. Sugihara saved approximately 6000 Jewish refugees in the summer of 1940 by issuing visas like this one, which allowed the refugees to escape to Asia.
Credit: MHMC.

Félicité Niyitegeka was a religious hutu that helped numerous Tutsi escape the genocide. While her brother, a distinguished military officer, urged her to abandon the Tutsi she hid, Félicité chose to stay and die with them.
Credit: IGIHE.com

Several churches and religious centers served as refugee camps for Tutsi during the genocide. In the case of Marie-Josée Gicali, she found refuge in the Pastoral Saint-Paul. This testimony describes the conditions, and kindness, within that community.
Credit: Montreal Life Stories – Rwanda.