A witness wrote down the story of an Armenian girl who refused to comply with the demands of Ottoman officials. Rather than compromise her Christian values and marry a Turkish officer, she insisted on being deported with her fellow Armenians. Viscount Bryce’s collection of 1915-1916 documents contains her story.
Credit: Armenian House.

Instead of following Nazi orders, many Jewish Council (Judenrat) members stood up and refused to sacrifice their fellow Jews. One such man was Adam Czerniakow, chairman of the Warsaw ghetto Judenrat. Rather than follow Nazi orders to provide information on ghetto residents and help deport them to the Treblinka death camp, he committed suicide in July 1942. He is the second person on the left in this photograph.
Credit: Yad Vashem Photo Archive.

In 1978, Em Phoeung, a monk disrobed by the Khmer Rouge, refused the Khmer authority’s demand that he should marry. Rather than acquiesce to the village chief, Phoeung used Khmer Rouge rhetoric to avoid marriage and adhere to his Buddhist vow of chastity.
Credit: ECCC, Nhet Sok Heng.

Yvette Ishimwe recounts her harrowing encounter with a Hutu militiaman soon after the start of the genocide of the Rwandan Tutsi. After killing her father, the man entered her home and then demanded that she kill her brothers. Knowing that she would be killed anyway, she refused. Despite the odds, she survived.
Credit: Montreal Life Stories – Rwanda.