Holocaust Education

ADL Jan Karski Courage to Care Award

On April 23, 1987, the Anti-Defamation League created a unique award called “Courage to Care” to honor rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust era. The ADL Courage to Care Award was renamed in 2011 in honor of one of its first recipients, Jan Karski, a Polish diplomat and righteous gentile who provided the West with one of the first eyewitness accounts of Hitler's Final Solution.

The award is a plaque with miniature bas-reliefs that depicts the horrifying context – the Nazis’ persecution, deportation and murder of millions of Jews – that served as a backdrop for the rescuers’ exceptional deeds. It is a replica of the plaques that constitute the Holocaust Memorial Wall created by noted sculptor Arbit Blatas, who also created the Holocaust Memorial in Paris and the display in the old ghetto of Venice, Italy.

The award, based on ADL’s evaluation of the rescuers’ acts, is given during specific programs and ceremonies sponsored by ADL, which often occur several times a year.

The Courage to Care program is made possible through a generous grant from Eileen Ludwig Greenland.

Courage to Care Honorees 

2012
Dr. Feng Shan Ho
Colonel José Arturo Castellanos

2011
Count János Esterházy
Francisca Halamajowa

2010
Horst B. Lantzsch
Irena Sendler
Jaap Penraat
Arlette deMonceau Michaelis

2009
Irene Gut Opdyke

2008
Gilberto Bosques Saldívar
Eduardo Propper de Callejón
Clara M. Ambrus (Bayer)

2007
Martha and Waitstill Sharp
Khaled Abdelwahhab
Ernst Leitz II
Mefail and Njazi Biçaku

2006
Hiram (Harry) Bingham IV
Nicholas Winton
Konstantin Koslovsky

2004
Giovanni Palatucci
Dimitrios P. Spiliakos

2003
Dr. Kostas Nikolaou
Johanna Vos
The Partisans of Riccone, Italy

2002
Hans Georg Calmeyer

2000
Hannah Pick-Goslar

1999
Monsignor Beniamo Schivo

1998
The People of Bulgaria

1997
Shyqyri Myrto

1996
Renia and Jerzy Kozminski

1993
Emilie and Oskar Schindler
Alice and Paul Paulus
People of Denmark

1991
Peter Vlcko
Stefania Burzminski

1990
Mela and Alex Roslan
Friedrich Born
Marion P. Pritchard

1989
Anna and Jan Pulchalski
Le Chambon-Sur-Lignon
Chiune Sugihara

1988
Selahattin Ulkumen
Jan Karski

1987
Aristides De Sousa Mendes
Jan and Miep Gies