The Courage For Civil Repair Narrating The Righteous in International Migration 1St Ed Edition Carlo Tognato Full Chapter

The Courage for Civil Repair: Narrating
the Righteous in International Migration

1st ed. Edition Carlo Tognato
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-courage-for-civil-repair-narrating-the-righteous-in-
international-migration-1st-ed-edition-carlo-tognato/
CULTURAL SOCIOLOGY
The Courage for

Civil Repair
Narrating the Righteous
in International Migration
Edited by
Carlo Tognato
Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky
Jeffrey C. Alexander
Cultural Sociology
Series Editors
Center for Cultural Sociology
Yale University
New Haven, CT, USA
Ron Eyerman
Yale University
New Haven, CT, USA
David Inglis
Department of Sociology
University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland
Philip Smith
Yale University
New Haven, CT, USA
Cultural sociology is widely acknowledged as one of the most vibrant ar-
eas of inquiry in the social sciences across the world today. The Palgrave
Macmillan Series in Cultural Sociology is dedicated to the proposition
that deep meanings make a profound difference in social life. Culture is
not simply the glue that holds society together, a crutch for the weak, or
a mystifying ideology that conceals power. Nor is it just practical knowl-
edge, dry schemas, or know how. The series demonstrates how shared
and circulating patterns of meaning actively and inescapably penetrate the
social. Through codes and myths, narratives and icons, rituals and rep-
resentations, these culture structures drive human action, inspire social
movements, direct and build institutions, and so come to shape history.
The series takes its lead from the cultural turn in the humanities, but
insists on rigorous social science methods and aims at empirical expla-
nations. Contributions engage in thick interpretations but also account
for behavioral outcomes. They develop cultural theory but also deploy
middle-range tools to challenge reductionist understandings of how the
world actually works. In so doing, the books in this series embody the
spirit of cultural sociology as an intellectual enterprise.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14945
Carlo Tognato · Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky ·
Editors
The Courage for Civil

Repair
Narrating the Righteous in International Migration
Editors
Carlo Tognato Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky
Schar School of Policy and Department of Sociology
Government Masaryk University
George Mason University Brno, Czech Republic
Arlington, VA, USA
Yale University
New Haven, CT, USA
Cultural Sociology
ISBN 978-3-030-44589-8 ISBN 978-3-030-44590-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44590-4
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: imagedepotpro/E+/Getty Images
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To our children, and our students.
Series Editor Preface
This extraordinary volume collects eight examples of civil righteousness,

acts of civil courage and cross-group solidarity within the context of in-
ternational migration. The notion of righteousness has religious roots,
though its common meaning is much more broad; it has come to mean
being in the right relation to others, or more colloquially, doing the right
thing. How one judges or underpins righteousness can be culturally and
situationally relative, but its “rightness” is what makes an act righteous. In
religious tradition, righteous acts can be saintly and sanctified as in living
in a way that is pleasing to God or Gods. In secular usage, it can mean
acting according to moral principles that transcend a particular situation
and that are not regulated by self-interest or practical outcome. Max We-
ber termed such action value-oriented, actions performed according to
one’s deeply held values or principles. Hannah Arendt thought such ac-
tions exemplary, revealing of a person’s inner virtues. For her, virtuousness
is revealed through the performance of righteous acts in a public sphere.
The State of Israel created the phrase Righteous Among Nations to
acknowledge and honor the acts of non-Jews who put themselves in dan-
ger to help Jews during the Holocaust. The awarding of this title is now
under the auspices of the Supreme Court of Israel, with a list of require-
ments to help determine the righteousness of an action. As the editors
suggest it is not surprising that Righteous Among Nations has become
an exemplar for a wide range of acts of civil courage including those re-
lated to international migration. They have chosen eight cases to reveal
vii
viii SERIES EDITOR PREFACE
this and at the same time to expand our understanding of civil courage in
the contemporary context. The examples range geographically from Eu-
rope, central, south and north America, to Africa to Australia. The cases,
which include the coordinated actions of Muslims and Jews in Germany,
Jewish refugees in Vienna, Australian doctors, migrant-rights activists in
Spain and Morocco, Colombian, Cypriot and American volunteers, make
for intellectually and emotionally stimulating reading. At the same time,
there is a great deal of practical knowledge to be gleaned from these ex-
amples of civil courage and moral commitment. Exemplary action always
contains a pedagogic moment, at one and the same time revealing the
inner virtuousness of an actor, and revealing how one should act oneself.
Ron Eyerman
Yale University
New Haven, CT, USA
Preface and Acknowledgments
When Jeffrey C. Alexander laid out civil sphere theory (CST) in 2006, he
presented it as a general theory designed for universal application. Yet, the
empirical cases focused primarily on the United States. Since 2015, Jeffrey
C. Alexander has gathered a broad group of scholars from Latin Amer-
ica, East Asia, and Europe to push the boundaries of CST. This effort has
resulted in a long pipeline of books: The Civil Sphere in Latin America
(Cambridge UP, 2018), edited by Jeffrey C. Alexander and Carlo Tog-
nato, The Civil Sphere in East Asia (Cambridge UP, 2019), The Nordic
Civil Sphere (Polity Press, 2019), Breaching the Civil Order: Radicalism
and the Civil Sphere (Cambridge UP, 2020), and Populism in the Civil
Sphere (Polity Press, 2021). Our current book builds upon this line of
work.
At the time of his chapter contribution to The Civil Sphere in Latin
America, back in 2016, Carlo Tognato started to give shape to an inter-
ventive strand of CST, an agenda that he later pursued and expanded in his
chapter contribution to Breaching the Civil Order as well as in book chap-
ters (“Countering Violent Extremism Through Narrative Intervention,”
“Conversaciones de paz en las universidades”), an article (“Los Justos en
el Conflicto Armado Colombiano”), and two conference presentations in
2018 at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society in Balti-
more and at the World Congress of Sociology in Toronto, respectively. In
the meantime, in July 2016, Tognato started to experiment in Colombia
ix
x PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
with a narrative extension of the category “Righteous Among the Na-

tions” for the purpose of reactivating cross-group solidarity in a society
that had been deeply divided by many decades of internal armed conflict.
This resulted in the organization between 2016 and 2017 of a National
Journalism Prize on “The Righteous in the Colombian Armed Conflict,”
spinning off into a series of lectures at the Universidad del Valle in Cali,
Colombia (2017), the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the
University of Minnesota (2018), the Center for Latin American Studies at
the University of Pittsburgh (2018), and at the Program on Latin Amer-
ican Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (2018).
Between October 31 and November 2, 2017, Bernadette Nadya Ja-
worsky traveled to Bogota after an invitation by Tognato to give a series
of lectures at the National University of Colombia about The Boundaries
of Belonging: Social Organizations and Media in the Debates Over “Illegal”
Migration. Prompted by the images of suffering that, at the time, were
circulating in international media in relation to migrants held in deten-
tion centers, Tognato and Jaworsky gave shape in Bogota to the idea of
this book. Soon after, Jeffrey C. Alexander joined the project and in the
following months, an invitation was extended to the contributors in this
book to participate in this endeavor.
Volker M. Heins, María Luengo, and Nelson Arteaga-Botello had pre-
viously participated in other CST projects. Like Heins, Jaworsky, Luengo
and Tognato, Werner Binder, who later contributed to Populism in the
Civil Sphere, has been, for many years, faculty fellow at the Center for
Cultural Sociology at Yale, of which Alexander has been founder and di-
rector. Ana Mijić, Anthony Moran, Kafaa Msaed, Argyro Nicolaou and
Yiannis Papadakis, on the other hand, have joined anew our network of
CST scholars and cultural sociologists for this occasion, thereby helping
us expand the horizons of our conversation.
On October 16–18, 2018, we gathered at Masaryk University in Brno,
where Jaworsky and her Center for the Cultural Sociology of Migration
hosted us, for two days of discussion over our chapters.
In the summer of 2019 Palgrave Macmillan accepted our book project.
We are grateful to our editor at Palgrave, Mary Al-Sayed, and to edito-
rial assistant Madison Allums, for accompanying us along the publication
process, as well as the editorial board of the Cultural Sociology Series at
Palgrave for its support in this project.
Additionally, Jaworsky wishes to acknowledge the financial support of
the Grant Agency of Masaryk University, through the student research
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
project “Migration and Social Inequality: Cultural Sociological Perspec-

tives,” project number MUNI/A/1068/2018 and “Migration and Con-
temporary Societies: Cultural Sociological Perspectives,” project number
MUNI/A/1157/2019.
Arlington, USA Carlo Tognato

Brno, Czech Republic Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky
New Haven, USA Jeffrey C. Alexander
Praise for The Courage for Civil
Repair
“Given this moment of heightened xenophobia and nationalism, this book

could not be more timely. Not only does it shed light on the underlying
cultural processes that make some migrants ‘deserving’ while others get
treated as undesirable burdens, it also helps identify the conditions that
lead to successful mobilization on migrants’ behalf. By bringing together
cases from across the world, and incorporating the voices of a range of
relevant actors, The Courage for Civil Repair makes an important contri-
bution to theory and practice.”
—Peggy Levitt, Luella LaMer Slaner Professor in Latin American Studies
and Professor of Sociology, Wellesley College, USA, and Associate at the
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, USA
“The original scholarship and unique insights that inform The Courage
for Civil Repair cannot be ignored. The contributors behind this timely
work build upon the ‘Righteous among the Nations,’ a post-World War II
official designation meant to enshrine the heroic actions of non-Jews who
risked it all to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust. Here they refashion
this distinction for a new age in order to salute today’s upstanders for
their efforts to relieve the suffering of migrants and refugees across the
globe. In the wake of ethnonational polarization and rampant nativism,
xiii
xiv PRAISE FOR THE COURAGE FOR CIVIL REPAIR
each chapter sheds light on exemplary stories of community mobilization,

empathy, solidarity and courage in the face of startling indifference.”
—Alejandro Baer, Associate Professor of Sociology and Stephen C. Feinstein
Chair and Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies,
University of Minnesota, USA
Contents
1 Introduction: Understanding Civil Courage in

International Migration 1
Carlo Tognato
Part I Righteous, Between Yesterday and Today
2 The Righteous of the Transnation: Jews, Muslims, and a

Politics of Friendship in Berlin 35
Volker M. Heins
3 “We Are Jewish and We Want to Help You”: Righteous

Cross-Group Solidarity Toward Muslim Refugees in
Vienna 61
Werner Binder and Ana Mijić
4 Righteous Doctors: Reacting to the Inhumane Treatment

of Asylum Seekers in Australia 91
Anthony Moran
xv
xvi CONTENTS
Part II Righteous, Today
5 When Saving Lives Becomes a Crime: Performances

of Solidarity with Migrants Along Europe’s Southern
Border 125
María Luengo and Kafaa Msaed
6 The Courage of Piety: Civil Solidarity and the Dead in

International Migration 153
Carlo Tognato
7 Solidary Cuisine: Las Patronas Facing the Central

American Migratory Flow 183
Nelson Arteaga-Botello
8 Reaching Across: Migrant Support Activism on a Divided

Island 203
Argyro Nicolaou and Yiannis Papadakis
9 “We Always Have Been and Always Will Be a Sanctuary

City”: Cities as Righteous Actors in the U.S. Civil
Sphere 231
Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky
Part III Conclusion
10 Conclusion: The Public Performance of Civil

Righteousness 265
Index 273
Notes on Contributors
Jeffrey C. Alexander is Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology

at Yale University and the founder and codirector of Yale’s Center for
Cultural Sociology. Among his recent writings are What Makes a Social
Crisis? The Societalization of Social Problems (2019), and The Drama of
Social Life (2017).
Nelson Arteaga-Botello is research professor of sociology at the Facul-
tad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales México, and Faculty Fellow at
the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University. His research interests
focus on violence and culture. His publications include “It Was the State:
The Trauma of the Enforced Disappearance of Students in Mexico,” In-
ternational Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 32(2018): 337–355,
Sociedad, cultura y la esfera civil (edited with Carlo Tognato, 2019), and
“The Populist Transition and the Civil Sphere in Mexico” in Populism
in the Civil Sphere (edited by Jeffrey C. Alexander, Peter Kivisto, and
Giuseppe Sciortino, 2021).
Werner Binder is assistant professor at Masaryk University, Brno (Czech
Republic). After studies in Mannheim, Potsdam and Berlin, he earned his
Ph.D. at the University of Konstanz with a thesis on the Abu Ghraib Scan-
dal. He is author of Abu Ghraib und die Folgen (2013, Transcript), coau-
thor of Ungefähres (2014, Velbrück) and coeditor of Kippfiguren (2013,
Velbrück). His fields of interest include sociological theory and cultural
sociology, as well as textual and visual methods of interpretation.
xvii
xviii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Volker M. Heins is Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Advanced

Study in the Humanities (KWI) in Essen, Germany, and professor of po-
litical science at the University of Duisburg-Essen. He is also a member of
the executive board of the Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the
University of Duisburg-Essen. He has recently published (with Christine
Unrau), “Anti-immigrant Movements and the Self-poisoning of the Civil
Sphere: The Case of Germany,” in Breaching the Civil Order: Radicalism
and the Civil Sphere, (edited by Jeffrey C. Alexander, Trevor Stack, and
Farhad Khosrokhavar, Cambridge UP, 2020).
Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky is associate professor of sociology at
Masaryk University, Brno (Czech Republic), and Faculty Fellow at Yale
University’s Center for Cultural Sociology. Her latest book, The Bound-
aries of Belonging: Online Work of Immigration-Related Social Movement
Organizations, was published in 2016. Her two most recent articles, fea-
turing the cultural sociological analysis of media coverage on refugees en-
tering the United States and Canada, have been published in 2019 in
Nations and Nationalism and Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies.
Her current research focuses on public perceptions of migration, border
narratives, and the migration-populism nexus.
María Luengo is associate professor in the Department of Communica-
tion at Carlos III University of Madrid (Spain). Her work focuses on jour-
nalism and the civil sphere. Recent book publications include The Crisis
of Journalism Reconsidered: Democratic Culture, Professional Codes, Digi-
tal Future (co-edited with Alexander and Breese, Cambridge UP, 2016)
and News Media Innovation Reconsidered (co-edited with Susana Her-
rera Damas, Wiley, forthcoming). Her research has appeared in European
Journal of Communication, Media, Culture & Society, Journalism, and
Journalism Studies, among others.
Ana Mijić is postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Sociology at
the University of Vienna (Austria), where she also earned her Ph.D. She
was a fellow at the International Research Centre for Cultural Studies
and at the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Insti-
tute at Trinity College Dublin. Theoretically based within the sociology
of knowledge, her research focuses on identity and ethnicity, (post)war
and migration. She is author of “Verletzte Identitäten” and several arti-
cles published in international journals and edited volumes. Her current
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xix
research project “Postwar Diaspora(s)” is funded by the Austrian Science

Fund.
Anthony Moran is associate professor in the Department of Social In-
quiry at La Trobe University, Australia. His books include The Public Life
of Australian Multiculturalism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), Ordinary
People’s Politics (Pluto Press Australia, 2006) and Australia: Nation, Be-
longing and Globalization (Routledge, 2005). He teaches and researches
in the areas of race, ethnicity, nationalism, multiculturalism, migration, In-
digenous/settler politics and relations, and social policy. His articles have
appeared in various journals, including Nations and Nationalism, Politi-
cal Psychology, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Journal of Sociology and Journal
of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
Kafaa Msaed is a journalist and a Ph.D. student in the department of
communication at Carlos III University of Madrid (Spain). Her work fo-
cuses on the images of violence against women in the Lebanese media.
She follows a cultural sociological approach to examine the media, and
uses content analysis and discourse analysis to obtain empirical results.
Argyro Nicolaou is postdoctoral research associate at the Seeger Cen-
ter for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University, USA. She is a cultural
scholar and filmmaker whose research interests include the representation
of Mediterranean migrations in literature, film, and visual art, and the in-
teraction of art and politics. Her work has been featured in the American
Historical Review and the Journal of Mediterranean Studies. She received
her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature with a secondary field degree in Crit-
ical Media Practice from Harvard University in 2018.
Yiannis Papadakis is professor of social anthropology in the Department
of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cyprus. He is au-
thor of Echoes from the Dead Zone: Across the Cyprus Divide (I.B. Tauris,
2005, also translated in Greek and Turkish), co-editor of Divided Cyprus:
Modernity, History and an Island in Conflict (Indiana University Press,
2006) and Cypriot Cinemas: Memory, Conflict and Identity in the Mar-
gins of Europe (Bloomsbury, 2014), and editor of a 2006 special issue
of Postcolonial Studies on Cyprus, among others. His published work has
focused on borders, nationalism, memory, history education, cinema and
migration.
xx NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Carlo Tognato is visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Social
Change, Institutions and Policy by the Schar School of Policy and Gov-
ernment at George Mason University and Faculty Fellow at the Cen-
ter for Cultural Sociology at Yale University. His latest publications in-
clude Sociedad, cultura y la esfera civil (with Nelson Arteaga-Botello,
FLACSO-Mexico, 2019), The Civil Sphere in Latin America (with Jef-
frey C. Alexander, Cambridge University Press, 2018), Cultural Agents
Reloaded: The Legacy of Antanas Mockus (The President and Fellows of
Harvard College, 2017). His research focuses on civil reconstruction, civil
degradation, civil courage, and civil intervention.
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Understanding Civil Courage

Carlo Tognato
International migration has always been a field of suffering as much as one

of hope for those who undertake the tortuous journey of leaving home to
find a new one. At the same time, it is a terrain on which democracies have
again and again been called to battle for the purpose of preserving their
moral core and maintaining the civil ideals by which open societies have
traditionally managed to uphold human dignity—reasonableness, auton-
omy, truthfulness, openness, criticism, trust, honorability, deliberation,
transparency, accountability, rule of law, and inclusion. Today, democra-
cies around the world are fiercely in the midst of such a battle. Recent
debates concerning US, EU, and Australian migrant detention centers
provide clear proof, as observers on all sides of the political spectrum have
reacted to reports about children being separated from their parents, “de-
prived of soap, clean water, toilets, toothbrushes, adequate nutrition and
sleep” (Montero 2019), of babies fed from the same unwashed bottle
for days (Malik 2019), of migrants banging on cells and pressing notes
onto windows begging for help, crammed in overcrowded spaces (Pitzer
C. Tognato (B)
Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University, Arlington,
VA, USA
e-mail: ctognato@gmu.edu
© The Author(s) 2020 1

C. Tognato et al. (eds.), The Courage for Civil Repair,
Cultural Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44590-4_1
2 C. TOGNATO
2019), without fresh water, and standing on toilets for the purpose of
catching a breath of air (Katz 2019), or, thousands of miles away, of
young children engaging in self-harm (Harrison 2018), attempting sui-
cide (Zhou 2018), or simply withdrawing from life (Harrison 2018), and
of adults going on hunger strikes and sewing their mouth shut in protest
(Liljas 2018), or falling victim to sexual abuse and torture (Malik 2019).
On the one end of the debate spectrum, some have sought to justify
and normalize such institutional realities by diminishing the humanity
of the detainees, labeling them a priori as “animals” (Hirschfeld Davis
2018), “wild ass shitbags,” and “subhumans” (Thompson 2019), or
treating them like pests (Simon 2018) for which shooting “may be the
only effective means of keeping them out” (Levitz 2019). “Racist and
xenophobic anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner rhetoric” has then been
matched with “smear campaigns” against migrant rescuers to infuse soci-
ety with a “climate of hatred and discrimination” (Sharman 2018), which
might then support the plausibility of such degrading labels and the sani-
tization of cruelty by euphemization. Others, instead, have sought to jus-
tify such realities by attaching anticivil attributes to migrants or to their
modes of entry into the receiving countries and by stressing the urgency
of realistically tackling the challenge of international migration without
letting emotion come in the way of rational policy. After all, they stress,
the moral need to limit human suffering cannot do away by fiat with
the harsh reality of resource scarcity. And yet others, within the opposite
camp, have rejected on principle racist and xenophobic justifications of
such cruel modes of containment and objected, as well, to their ratio-
nalization on civil grounds, claiming that these regularly fail the test of
authenticity each time they come short of accounting for the inevitability
of cruelty in policy responses.
Such intense cultural work constitutes an important dimension of the
civil process by which societies go about determining who is worthy
of inclusion and who is not. Alexander (2006) has shed light over the
mechanics of such dynamics in his foundational book about the “civil
sphere.” As he puts it, the civil sphere is a distinctively democratic field
of solidarity that sustains universalizing cultural aspirations vis-à-vis other
noncivil spheres of society such as the economy, religion, science, primor-
dial associations, and states. As such, those who people the civil sphere
recognize each other as bearers of civil attributes and feel bound to one
another by obligations of civil solidarity. When the universalistic idealiza-
tions of the civil sphere are instantiated in time and place, though, they
1 INTRODUCTION: UNDERSTANDING CIVIL COURAGE … 3
become compromised and, as Alexander and Tognato (2018: 2) explain,

“classes, races, genders, sexualities, ethnicities, religions, and regions may
become the signified for pejorative anti-civil signifiers.” As a consequence,
in real civil spheres, the members of a civil community end up demarcat-
ing “us” from “them” by engaging in symbolic boundary work geared
toward bestowing insiders with pure civil attributes and outsiders with
polluting anticivil ones. This, in turn, often entails the mobilization of
powerful icons of purity and pollution.
In many Western countries, Holocaust memory provides a rich reser-
voir of such icons and, over the years, it has been again and again invoked
for the purpose of catalyzing humanitarian responses on a variety of civil
issues of public interest (Alexander 2003). It is therefore not surprising to
witness references to Holocaust memory also in relation to international
migration.
In the recent back and forth of public arguments over the civility of US
migrant detention centers, for example, some observers have ventured to
link them with Nazi concentration camps in an effort at projecting pol-
lution over them, at sensitizing public officials and citizens on the con-
dition of the detainees, and at snapping them out of their perceived self-
complacency or indifference (Katz 2019; Levitz 2019; Pitzer 2019). As
US Member of Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put it in a tweet, “if
that doesn’t bother you … I want to talk to the people that are concerned
enough with humanity to say that ‘never again’ means something” (Mon-
tero 2019).
Holocaust memory has also been evoked to draw public attention to
those upstanders who take risks and may even pay a personal price to
relieve the suffering of migrants. For example, the sacred icon of the
Righteous Among the Nations, that is, those righteous gentiles who dur-
ing the Shoah risked their lives to hide, protect, and sometimes save the
lives of Jews from Nazi extermination, has recently surfaced in religious
discourse in relation to the story of a migrant rescuer, Scott Warren, from
the Arizona organization “No More Deaths” (Harvey 2019). In 2018,
Warren, a 36-year-old geography teacher, was arrested and charged by
US authorities with three felonies for helping two undocumented Cen-
tral American migrants as they were crossing the Arizona Desert, which
might land him in jail for over a decade (Jordan 2019).1 Warren’s case
has drawn public attention across the United States and beyond. About
125,000 people signed an online petition demanding the dismissal of the
case, and in a statement about the case, the United Nation’s Office of the
4 C. TOGNATO
High Commissioner for Human Rights noted that “humanitarian aid is

not a crime” (Harvey 2019).
Thousands of miles away, Carola Rackete, captain of Sea-Watch III,
a migrant rescue ship operated in the Mediterranean Sea by a German
NGO, was arrested after docking without authorization in the Italian
island of Lampedusa and disembarking 41 African migrants, whom she
refused to return to their port of origin in Libya, as she deemed it unsafe
for them. Her story, as well, inspired an association with Holocaust mem-
ory, though this time via a passage from “Letter from the Birmingham
Jail” by Martin Luther King: “We should never forget that everything
Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and…It was ‘illegal’ to aid and
comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany” (Russo Bullaro 2019).
The use of powerful icons of purity and pollution in the symbolic
boundary work over civil incorporation is generally a highly contentious
matter. And indeed, recent references to Holocaust memory in relation
to the treatment of migrants are no exception. With particular reference
to the association of US migrant detention camps with Nazi concentra-
tion camps, for example, while some Holocaust scholars, such as Waitman
Wade Beorn (Montero 2019) and Timothy Snyder (Malik 2019), have
backed it, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum rejected any “analogies
between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contempo-
rary” (Montero 2019). Within the community of survivors of the Shoah
and their families, in turn, some distanced themselves from the analogy,
insisting that in Nazi extermination camps, captives lived “in daily fear of
being killed” (Montero 2019), while others have noted that “those who
invoke the Holocaust to emphasize the moral urgency of aiding detained
migrants don’t demean” their relatives’ suffering during the Shoah “but
rather redeem it.” The Shoah, after all, still has “important lessons for
what’s happening … today” (Montero 2019). Echoing this posture, in
July 2019, 18 Jewish activists with the group Never Again Action staged
a protest on Capitol Hill against US migrant detention centers. Never
Again Action later declared that “as Jews, we know what the separation
of families, the covert rounding-up of people and the creation of concen-
tration camps can lead to. We refuse to wait and see what happens next….
We know what happens when people unaffected by crises act as bystanders
and look the other way.”2 This stance also powerfully resonates with an
earlier action carried out in 2018 in Israel by Rabbi Susan Silverman and
the organization Rabbis for Human Rights as they invoked the mem-
ory of Anne Frank and of the family friend who hid her in his home in
an effort at prompting Israeli families to hide African asylum-seekers and

save them from deportation (Kraft 2018).3
Scholars working on the civil dynamics of incorporation tend to read
such symbolic boundary work as an exercise of “civil translation,” by
which members of a civil community recast concrete actors, relations, and
institutions in civil terms for the purpose of coding them as deserving of
acceptance and support or alternatively of rejection (Alexander 2006).
While we accept this, we still believe that it is necessary to zoom further
into the process of civil translation and analytically unpack it in relation
to its context for the purpose of bringing into focus some relevant aspects
of the fine mechanics of solidarity formation in society.
As people bestow civil and anticivil attributes onto insiders and out-
siders and as they invoke to that end certain icons of purity and pollution
that are available in their broader public culture, they are almost regu-
larly bound to intervene into the cultural fabric of their civil community.
Such cultural interventions, in turn, entail two types of action that pull
in opposite directions. On the one hand, people are bound to breach the
local horizon of cultural expectations within their community each time
their exercise of civil translation is geared toward civil repair, and thus to
the inclusion of actors into their horizon of civil solidarity from which
the latter have been traditionally excluded.4 On the other hand, their
new coding of prior outsiders as insiders will still need to make cultural
sense and ring authentic in order to be persuasive. The cultural translation
that goes into civil repair, in other words, happens within the chasm that
opens up between breaching and conforming with the horizon of cultural
expectations of a civil community and also unfolds under the Damocles’
sword of the reactions to be expected on the part of the defenders of the
local social order who will mobilize to neutralize or reverse the breaches.
While such a chasm constitutes a distinctively poietic moment in civil
repair, it also identifies a space for courage. On one occasion, Arendt
(1961: 156) noted that courage is “demanded of us by the very nature of
the public realm’ because ‘in politics not life but the world is at stake.’”
Indeed, this is apparent when we delve into the very micro-mechanics of
civil translation. The horizon of cultural expectations that is breached in
an exercise of civil repair, after all, makes up the ontology of the social
world of a civil community and bears an extraordinary moral weight, as
Garfinkel (1967) already recognized.
The breadth of this cultural chasm between breach and conformity,
in turn, crucially depends on how socially and culturally difficult it is to
6 C. TOGNATO
weave more encompassing forms of cross-group solidarity within a given

context. In societies plagued by profound divisions and extreme levels of
polarization, engaging in acts of civil repair that seek to include social
groups into the civil community that were previously excluded from it
may turn out to be quite costly for those who do so. Under such cir-
cumstances, people seeking to solidarize with members of outer groups
may face a backlash from members of their own collective, who might
come to see their gesture as a betrayal of ingroup solidarity. This situa-
tion may thus face the former with a dilemma. They may either go ahead
with their act of cross-group solidarity and possibly sacrifice their social
ties with members of their own group, or remain indifferent to the suf-
fering of the members of other groups and thus put up with the moral
responsibility for other people’s suffering that may be inherent in civil
indifference.
Furthermore, in social settings where cross-group solidarity has with-
ered due to deep social divisions or extreme polarization, extending soli-
darity to certain outsiders may become not only socially problematic but
also almost unimaginable. When this occurs, the chasm between cultural
breach and conformity in civil repair widens up, as it pulls the breach fur-
ther away from what might be otherwise expected by the members of a
civil community.
Navigating the space between breaching and fitting in while prepar-
ing to face the defensive responses on the part of the guardians of the
local social order makes up a relevant dimension of courage in civil repair.
Cultivating that courage, in turn, is about teaching the competence to
move across that space. This book seeks to contribute to such cultiva-
tion by bringing into focus what that may actually entail. And by doing
so, it also aligns with the recognition in the literature that competence
matters in courageous acts: “The best preparation for courageous action
is the preparation for action; competence and confidence in competence”
(Rorty Oksenberg 1988: 303; in Miztal 2007: 77–78; see also Brandstaet-
ter and Frey 2003; Frey et al. 2007; Jonas et al. 2007; Rachman 1978,
2004).
Quite remarkably, the phenomenon of civil courage in social life has
been overlooked by the civil society literature in spite of its relevance.
As Swedberg (1999: 514) and Press (2018: 181) point out, social scien-
tists have focused on why people obey and conform (Arendt 1963; Bau-
man 1989; Hilberg 1992; Hamilton and Kelman 1989; Milgram 1974;
Zimbardo 2007) rather than on how they stand up, distance themselves
from a hostile majority, and “rock the boat” (Said 1994: 55; in Miztal
2007: 34). Part of the reason for such neglect may have depended on
the perception of courage “as an individualistic phenomenon driven by
conscience” and thus impervious to sociological analysis (Presser 2018:
181). On the other hand, liberal scholars have also traditionally dismissed
civil courage as old-fashioned (Shklar 1989) and instead stressed toler-
ation, civility, compassion, and reasonableness (Scorza 2001). In demo-
cratic societies, they insist, laws, education, moral principles, and institu-
tions do away with fear and thus with the need for courage (Robin 2000).
In this book, we distance ourselves from such a posture. In democratic
societies, courage is still necessary because behaving in a non-conformist
manner may entail personal risks, difficulties, and dangers for those who
decide to do so as they come out and take a public stance to contest
a norm or a cultural representation in an effort at changing it (Merton
[1949] 1968: 413–415; Schwan 2004: 113; Wallace 1978: 81).
When civil translation aims at incorporating within a community the
members of a social group that has traditionally been excluded from it,
such translation almost regularly breaches the horizon of cultural expec-
tations of that community, which may entail personal costs in the form of
“derision, ostracism, loss of status, demotion, loss of job,” or even physi-
cal dangers (Miller 2000: 258). This is why, to navigate the cultural chasm
between breach and conformity for the purpose of broadening that hori-
zon, agents of civil repair are often bound to engage in acts of courage.
And thus, to that end, they will need to draw from their commitment to
the moral principles on which the civil community is based, from their
awareness of the risks, costs, and dangers that such acts might entail, and
from their willingness to endure them (Kidder 2005: 7). And while at it,
they will need to face ambiguity, exposure, and, very possibly, loss (Kidder
2005: 130–131).
Such acts of courage, in turn, inextricably intertwine civil and moral
motives. To paraphrase Sontag (2003: 6), they are not carried out by
agents of civil repair just because the latter want to be in the right or
appease their own conscience and much less because they are confident
that their action will succeed. They do so out of solidarity and they are
inspired by the universalistic ideals of civil society (Swedberg 1999: 522).
This is why it is relevant to take into consideration both literatures on
civil and moral courage for the purpose of bringing into focus how this
book moves their frontiers forward.
8 C. TOGNATO
Scholars working on civil and moral courage see acts of courage as the
culmination of a process by which certain actors reinterpret their context,
take responsibility for some wrongs, choose a path to repair, and finally do
help (Fogelman 2002; Latané and Darley 1970). Along that path, they
have found culture, society, and personality to matter in a variety of ways.
Scholars working on righteous rescuers during the Holocaust, for exam-
ple, emphasize their “universalistic perception of the needy” (Tec 1986:
154), their “love of humanity” and “universal sense of justice,”5 their uni-
versalistic view of their ethical obligations (Oliner and Oliner 1988), their
strong sense of “inclusiveness” (Oliner and Oliner 1988: 175), and their
capability of seeking in the victims human beings similar to themselves
(Oliner and Oliner 1988: 144; cf. Fogelman 1994; Hallie 1994; London
1970; Tec 1986). Belief in the aspirational ideals of the civil sphere, in
other words, works as a source of strength and, ultimately, of courage.
Social locations, settings, networks, and institutions have also been
looked at as potential factors of influence in acts of courage. The lit-
erature on righteous rescuers within the context of the Holocaust, for
example, has looked into the influence of social class, occupational sta-
tus, economic resources, gender, and political or religious affiliations and
found that social class, economic capital, or occupational status are insuf-
ficient for determining actions of rescue,6 that the impact of gender7 and
political affiliations8 is contradictory, and that the moral content of reli-
gious teachings rather than religious affiliation per se may be a relevant
motivating factor in rescue decisions,9 particularly when such teachings
insist on the importance of valuing other human beings.10 Some scholars
have also considered the socially marginal position of the rescuers, their
being at odds with their respective communities, and their adventurous
lives11 as potential factors of influence, but they have concluded that none
of these characteristics is representative of all righteous rescuers.12 Social
networks, as well, have been recognized as significant in the mobilization
of information, resources, and support for the actions of rescue (Sémelin
et al. 2011: 8; Thalhammer et al. 2007). Some scholars, though, have
insisted that courageous acts of rescue are the result of the structures of
opportunity that are inherent in social networks as well as of chance and
contingency (Moore 2010). In his contribution on civil courage, in turn,
Swedberg (1999: 523) urges social scientists to take notice of the impact
on civil courage of different institutional settings, such as schools, univer-
sities, corporations, families, and friends.
As far as personality is concerned, scholars have emphasized the impor-

tance of such character traits as bravery, persistence, integrity, vitality, and
strength of will (Peterson and Seligman 2004: 199; Rachman 2004: 169,
173; in Miztal 2007: 73; Sekerka and Bagozzi 2007; Sekerka et al. 2009).
The literature on righteous rescuers during the Holocaust, in particular,
has looked at the “expanded sense of duty of the rescuer resulting into
their virtuous character” (Flescher 2000: 2), to their moral values and
their altruistic dispositions (Tec 1986; Oliner and Oliner 1988), their
empathy (Oliner and Oliner 1988; Tec 1986), and their capability of
focusing on the helplessness of the victims. And they have even explored
the parental model of moral conduct to which righteous rescuers were
exposed in the course of their upbringing (Eztioni 1988; London 1970).
Although, in this book, our contributors touch, to different degrees,
different cultural, social, and psychological factors that these literatures
have addressed, their focus is on the cultural work that courageous agents
of civil repair engage in. And by concentrating on the intense meaning-
making processes that permeate civil dynamics in international migration,
this book also adds to the growing literature in migration studies that
acknowledges the role of culture (Jaworsky 2016), thus departing from
a certain bias against it that over many decades characterized this field
(see especially Levitt 2005, 2012), partly in reaction to the “culture of
poverty” literature in the 1960s which was perceived to be blaming the
victim (Levitt 2005).13
Our Cases of Civil Courage

Both scholars and activists understand that the defense of the civil core
of our democracies crucially relies on the digging of multiple trenches
around it, each of which needs to be occupied by citizens willing to
endure some level of risk or sacrifice in order to defend it. In Western
public culture, the Righteous Among the Nations have often risen to the
status of iconic guardians of the last line of defense of humanity and civil
ideals in society. Thus, it is not surprising to witness that scholars trying
to make sense of moral and civil courage and civil society activists seek-
ing to cultivate it have again and again turned to the exemplary stories of
the Righteous Among the Nations to better understand how people may
engage in acts of cross-group solidarity in the face of prohibitive personal
costs and extreme danger and to inspire others to follow their footsteps,
10 C. TOGNATO
even at a great distance, by going down the rocky path to justice in the
face of hostility on the part of the very members of their own community.
The Righteous Among the Nations punctuated with flashes of light a
historical time of darkness when, to paraphrase British Foreign Secretary
Sir Edward Grey, the lamps had gone out all over Europe. Some were reli-
gious leaders, doctors, journalists, or social workers, like Bernhard Licht-
enberg, Adélaïde Hautval, Odoardo Focherini, or Irena Sendler. Others
were ordinary citizens like Berlin housewife Johanna Eck. Some acted
alone, while other acted as a community, like in Le Chambon sur Lignon
or in the Greek island of Zakynthos.
Bernhard Lichtenberg, provost of the Cathedral of St. Hedwig in
Berlin, reacted to the Nazi pogrom on Kristallnacht in his evening’s mass
by solidarizing with the Jews. Later, in October 1942, he delivered a pub-
lic prayer for the Jews being deported to death camps and urged his com-
munity to follow Christ’s call to “love thy neighbor.” He was denounced
and reported to the authorities, tried in court, sentenced to two years of
hard labor, and died on his way to the Dachau concentration camp.14
Down south in a Vichy-controlled region of southern France, psy-
chiatrist Adélaïde Hautval was arrested and imprisoned for crossing the
demarcation line as she sought to reach Paris and assist her dying mother.
In prison, to show solidarity with Jewish detainees wearing a yellow patch,
she pinned a yellow piece of paper on her clothes saying: “Friend of the
Jews.” After being shipped to the Birkenau death camp and being tasked
by the camp commander to serve as a doctor, she did not report the
prisoners who fell ill with typhus, thereby saving them from immediate
execution. After being transferred to Auschwitz, she refused to assist Dr.
Eduard Wirths’ experiments on Jewish women as well as Dr. Mengele’s
experiments on twins. As a result, she was sent back to Birkenau, later
transferred to Ravensbrück, and, in the end, survived until the libera-
tion.15
Further south, Odoardo Focherini, a journalist managing Italy’s
Catholic newspaper, L’Avvenire d’Italia, started out in 1942 on his mis-
sion to save Jews by faking documentation and helping them cross the
border into Switzerland. In March 1944, he was discovered, imprisoned,
and deported to the Hersbruck concentration camp, where he died.16
Back north, Johanna Eck sheltered four Jews from Nazi prosecution
in her small apartment. One of them, Elfriede Guttmann, managed to
survive till the end of the war but died in June 1946, just before her
scheduled migration to the United States. Eck remained at her bedside
in the hospital till she passed away. Then, she inquired within the Jewish
community about the names of her parents and brother who had died
during the Holocaust, bought a gravestone with her own money, had it
engraved with the names of Elfriede, her parents, and her brother, and
had Elfriede buried in the Berlín-Weissensee cemetery.17
A few hundred miles east, Polish social worker Irena Sendler helped
rescue 2500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto, placed them in
convents and with non-Jewish families, and saved them from extermina-
tion. She was discovered, arrested, tried, and sentenced to death but the
Żegota, the Council to Aid Jews, bribed the prison guards and she was
released.18
Occasionally, such righteous acts were carried out by entire commu-
nities. In the village of Le Chambon sur Lignon in southeastern France,
Pastor André Trocmé, leader of the local Protestant congregation and his
villagers offered a sanctuary for hundreds of Jews fleeing the Nazis and
their French collaborators,19 while in the island of Zakynthos, Metropoli-
tan Bishop Dimitrios Chrysostomos refused to submit a list of the 275
members of the local Jewish community to the SS commander in charge.
He hid them with the help of his fellow islanders in various rural villages
and then handed in, instead, a list that included only his name and that
of the Greek police chief of the island, Major Loukás Karrer.20
As Yad Vashem, the Israel Holocaust memorial center in Jerusalem,
points out, during the Holocaust “bystanders were the rule, rescuers were
the exception.” Only a few took upon themselves the responsibility of
safeguarding the lives of Jews; thus, the title of Righteous Among the
Nations was awarded to recognize almost exclusively this tiny minority.
At those dark times, though, more people sought to distance themselves
from the inhumanity that surrounded them and engaged in sporadic
righteous acts, some of them involving minor risks, others greater ones:
“Some people gave food to Jews, thrusting an apple into their pocket or
leaving food where they would pass on their way to work. Others directed
Jews to people who could help them; some sheltered Jews for one night
and told them they would have to leave in the morning.”21
Throughout history and up to the present, many more people around
the world have engaged in courageous acts of cross-group solidarity in a
broad variety of contexts in which civil ideals and the care for humanity
called for some urgent widening of the horizon of civil solidarity. The
stories of some mimic more closely those of the Righteous Among the
Nations, while others come closer to the ones of those who during the
12 C. TOGNATO
Holocaust stepped in but did not step all the way up. These stories alto-
gether identify a field of righteous courageous action and a specific lan-
guage of humanity, solidarity, and civility that begs for careful analysis.
They are also threads in the broader fabric of collective memory, some
tightly connected with one another, others still loose and waiting to be
woven more tightly together.
In many societies, the Righteous Among the Nations have become an
icon that condenses an entire field of language and action. On occasion,
the association of lesser-known stories with them has helped integrate the
former into that tapestry of collective memory and has contributed to
translate them and make them more relevant to Western audiences. Most
interestingly, though, the use of such an icon in association with cases of
righteous courageous action outside the context of the Holocaust that
involved lesser risks and dangers, has played a useful role on one fur-
ther front. Rather than cheapening the symbolic value of the Righteous
Among the Nations, it has sought to realize its full social potential. By
extending their aura onto less dramatic forms of moral and civil courage,
after all, such associations have meant to increase the moral pull of the
latter on their respective audiences within contexts and over issues in
which acts of civil courage have been still too rare or all too shy. When
successful, this has produced a welcome outcome. Scholars have found
that moral courage is not only facilitated by competence, but also by
repeated successful practice and experience (Rachman 2004: 173; Ruff
and Korchin 1964). As a consequence, teasing citizens into less risky acts
of civil courage may put them in a position to gain the experience and
the self-confidence that is needed later on to engage in more daring ones.
The iconic power of the Righteous Among the Nations, as a result, may
have served the purpose of placing more people onto that very track of
progression.
Bearing this in mind, it is not surprising that the memory of the Righ-
teous Among the Nations has been invoked in the public sphere in rela-
tion to courageous acts of cross-group solidarity over international migra-
tion. This is also the spirit with which this book presents the following
eight cases of civil courage under that very frame.
In Chapter 2, Volker Heins presents the Salaam Shalom Initiative,
which emerged in late 2013 in Berlin around a small group of Jewish res-
idents who were later joined by Muslims and others. The group is a loose
network held together by face-to-face meetings, public debates, and social
performances and features as its spokesperson Ármin Langer, a Hungar-

ian Jew who was kicked out of the rabbinic seminary at the University of
Potsdam after having harshly and publicly condemned the immigration-
skeptical attitude of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. The chapter
zooms into the enactment on the part of Salaam Shalom of its counter-
narrative against the artificial barriers between migrants with Jewish or
Muslim backgrounds and sheds light over the sheer complexity of doing
so against the background of the local cultural meanings attached to being
a Jew, a Muslim, or a German. Heins stresses that Salaam Shalom engages
in an affective politics of civil repair that complicates the dichotomy of
“brotherhood and otherhood” by breaking down the umbrella categories
of Germans and foreigners, Jews and Muslims. The articulation of a
“transnation” that ensues from such effort becomes the very origin of
righteous narrative interventions and plays an all-important role in the
emergence and recognition of “righteousness” with regard to certain acts
of cross-group solidarity.
In Chapter 3, Werner Binder and Ana Mijić explore the NGO Shalom
Alaikum—Jewish Aid for Refugees in Vienna. Unlike its Berlin counter-
part, Shalom Alaikum is dominated by Jewish women and has operated
in a societal context that has been more hostile toward Muslim refugees
than in the case of Germany. The work of the NGO is not only informed
by cleavages in the Austrian civil discourse, but also by conflicts within the
Jewish community in Vienna, where there are reservations about Muslim
refugees regarding their potential anti-Semitism. Jewishness appears to be
an important symbolic marker for the group, informing and legitimizing
its work, drawing on the memory of the Holocaust and the experience
of being a vulnerable minority in Austria. The authors illuminate how the
NGO operates in such an increasingly hostile environment and how its
members make sense of their work despite the adversities they face.
In Chapter 4, Anthony Moran tells the story of Australian doctors
advocating for asylum seekers, speaking out over the terrible conditions
in migrant detention centers, and risking prison for doing so. The chapter
explores their motivators, including visceral experiences with asylum seek-
ers, the ethics of care, and the social and institutional resources, such as
support by medical associations and broader social networks, which have
inspired groups of doctors in their acts of righteousness. Moran stresses
that the narratives of care and responsibility promoted by “righteous doc-
tors” within broader networks of solidarity with asylum seekers provide
resources to overcome civil indifference toward the suffering of others
14 C. TOGNATO
and may occasionally work toward tilting the balance over government
policy in favor of an improved treatment of migrant detainees.
In Chapter 5, Maria Luengo and Kafaa Msaed explore public narra-
tives on migrant-rights advocates operating along Europe’s southern bor-
der with a particular focus on the stories of three journalists-cum-activists
from Spain and Morocco—Helena Maleno, José Palazón, and Chakib Al
Khayari. Against the background of increasing fragmentation and contes-
tation over migration in European public debates, their stories have served
as powerful sources for solidarity narratives, to such an extent that they
have transcended national boundaries and generated public and media
interest not only across Europe but also around the globe. The authors
suggest that Moroccan journalist and human rights advocate Al Khayari,
in particular, performed civil solidarity more successfully than the others,
embodying deep ideals of justice, humanity, and inclusion before inter-
national audiences and effectively enacting their foreground scripts based
on authenticity and courage.
In Chapter 6, Carlo Tognato tells the story of coroner Sonia Bermúdez
from a northern coastal town in Colombia. Since the early 1980s,
Bermúdez has taken care of the unclaimed or unnamed dead processed
by her office as well as the dead of poor families that were earlier uncer-
emoniously disposed of in mass graves. She has attended to their bodies,
built the coffins on her own dime, and clandestinely buried them in a ter-
rain of her municipality, risking disciplinary sanctions or more. With the
Venezuelan migration emergency, the fate of Venezuelan migrants dying
in Colombia under the most destitute circumstances has fallen into the
cracks of the policy instruments devised by Colombian authorities, inter-
national agencies, and civil society, which were almost exclusively designed
to meet the needs of the living. Bermúdez has tried to fill that gap. The
chapter explores how she has stepped up within a socio-cultural context
that defies the practice of civil piety.
In Chapter 7, Nelson Arteaga-Botello presents the case of Las
Patronas, a group of homemakers that since the mid-1990s has pro-
vided food and assistance to Central American migrants passing through
their community on top of the “Beast,” the train that crosses Mexico
from the southern to the northern border. Although Las Patronas are
now recognized nationally and internationally and in spite of their deeply
Catholic motives, they have faced criticism and opposition, and still do,
from their community as well as from some ecclesiastic authorities, which
had excommunicated them. Arteaga-Botello stresses that, although over

time the group has come to tap into the civil discourse of human rights
to legitimize its acts before broader audiences, noncivil, religious motives
and narratives still continue to play an important role in supporting and
legitimizing the acts of cross-group solidarity that Las Patronas carry out
in spite of the social costs associated with them.
In Chapter 8, Argyro Nicolaou and Yiannis Papadakis address the case
of KISA (Movement for Equality, Support, and Anti-Racism), the old-
est and most-established NGO supporting migrants, asylum seekers, and
refugees in Cyprus, and its co-founder and executive director, Doros
Polycarpou, who worked for years in welfare services, protecting children
and female victims of domestic violence. In the Cypriot public sphere, the
dominance of the Cyprus Problem (referring back to the multiple conflicts
leading to the island’s division) turns any insinuation that Greek Cypriots
might oppress others into a politically and socially intolerable proposi-
tion that borders on the treacherous. Against such a background, KISA’s
appeal to the trauma of becoming a refugee in relation to its assistance to
migrants, which evokes the dominant public rhetoric Greek Cypriots use
for themselves, unsettles some audiences and triggers institutional resis-
tance or outright opposition on the part of the police, of unsympathetic
politicians, of the island’s racist educational system, and of state institu-
tions that have progressively dried up funding available for KISA’s activ-
ities. To bypass such obstacles, KISA has appealed to a transnational civil
sphere for leverage, recognition, and support from foreign institutions.
In Chapter 9, Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky unpacks how San Francisco
turned into a sanctuary city, worked to foster inclusiveness among all its
residents in a context of hostility and indifference, and battled to defend
its status against the Trump administration’s repeated attacks on sanctuary
cities. To this purpose, the author outlines the discursive contours of the
narrative battle between the City of San Francisco and the Trump admin-
istration through the disaggregation of three themes. First, she elaborates
the issue of public safety, manifesting primarily as protection from “aliens”
on the side of the Trump administration and as equal protection from
crime for all residents within the city of San Francisco’s story. Then, she
looks at the ways the idea of prosperity or economic success is implied or
explicitly invoked. And finally, she examines the role of a quintessential
civil value, the rule of law, as enshrined in the US Constitution.
16 C. TOGNATO
Cultivating Civil Courage by Leveraging

the Pedagogic Potential of Exemplary Stories
Delving into such stories not only sheds light over the intense cul-
tural work that goes into weaving cross-group solidarity with migrants,
thereby contributing to sharpen our understanding of such civil process
and potentially sustaining via increased cultural competence the exercise
of civil courage in relation to international migration. The stories pre-
sented by our contributors in this book are also pedagogically useful on
one further front.
As Ignatieff (2013: 7) has observed, situations that call for moral
courage do not only face individuals with the choice of siding with one
camp or another. Rather, they also demand that they decide who they are.
In other words,
the deciding moral self is not a given… we are a mystery to ourselves and
in moments of moral crisis, we ask: who, in this scene, do we wish to be?
Whose values do we wish to enact? Moral action can serve as an affirmation
of who we are, but it can also represent our wish to redeem ourselves in
our own eyes and in the eyes of others. Our first act of the imagination is
to settle on which character we will play in the moral drama.
Although people who display moral courage have the capacity to stand
alone (Fromm 1941: 173; Kennedy 1955: 4; in Press 2018: 183) and
are indeed bound to be alone (Walzer 1970), curiously enough, they do
not end up defining alone their role in that moral drama. Rather, they
draw on the support of an internalized, imagined community of others
who share their normative values, sympathize with their stance (Anderson
1983; Press 2018: 184; Staub 2003: 5) and with whom they remain in
conversation (Taylor 1989: 37). Such community, in turn, may include
exemplary figures from the past and the present as well as people who
identify with their example of courage.
Thus, the stories of civil courage presented in this book not only pro-
vide a background of collective representations that may grant plausibility
to the exercise of cross-group solidarity within society in relation to inter-
national migration, particularly when divisions and polarization over this
issue have made solidarity over it less imaginable. The characters of those
stories and their sympathetic audiences that this book might also con-
tribute to assemble make up that imagined community of others with a
normative commitment to cross-group solidarity that may in turn inspire

more acts of civil courage on the part of a broader circle of people along
the lines of Ignatieff’s argument (Press 2018: 184; Staub 2003: 5). Car-
riers of civil repair, in other words, may thus engage with them in tacit
inner conversations at a distance while deciding over the moral course of
their actions and may turn to their stories for templates of the characters
into which they may consider to constitute themselves in their own moral
dramas of cross-group solidarity (Taylor 1989).
That said, we are not naïve about the fact that to inscribe our stories
within that community more is needed than merely laying them out in a
book. To realize their full pedagogic potential, it is necessary to deploy
them across a variety of institutional scenarios beyond the scientific one,
such as the aesthetic, the educational, the religious, the media, the legal,
and the administrative. In each of them, in turn, these stories will need to
be performed in a convincing manner before a broad spectrum of relevant
audiences in order to make them resonate with the latter and exercise
sufficient moral and social traction on them (Alexander 2003). Though
this book does not go that far, it takes one first step into that direction
by providing a set of scripts that civil society activists, educators, cultural
producers, religious leaders, lawyers, and civil servants may later build on
in their own practice.
Different initiatives around the world reaffirm the pedagogic potential
of exemplary stories for the purpose of cultivating civil courage. In the
UK, for example, the Anne Frank Trust designed and delivered a video-
curriculum entitled “Moral Courage: Who’s Got It?” to teach courage
to young students, establishing an award for moral courage to recognize
educators, students, or community members “who decide to risk acting
with moral courage to confront bigotry, racism, and other forms of injus-
tice head on” (Kidder 2005: 232).22 The school program starts out with
Anne Frank’s story and then relates it to “contemporary issues of prej-
udice and discrimination.” Its Ambassadors Program selects and trains
peer-guides that later deliver presentations to their local primary schools
on issues of prejudice and discrimination. Similarly, the Civil Courage
training program run by the Mauthausen Committee in Austria builds on
the stories of various courageous individuals from the Holocaust, the US
Civil Rights Movement, and beyond for the purpose of turning “non-
involved spectators into helpers” and empowering “people to intervene
in ‘unpleasant’ public situations … in which people are attacked, uncon-
scious, acting aggressively or causing fear.”23
18 C. TOGNATO
In the United States, in turn, the Giraffe Heroes Project tells sto-
ries of courageous individuals to K-12 students. Following the motto
“Stick your neck out for the common good,” the curriculum has pro-
duced books, audiotapes, and videos to tell the stories of more than nine
hundred “Giraffes” (Kidder 2005: 232–233). This program asks students
to hear those stories, then tell the story of local heroes in their own com-
munities, and finally become the story by directly engaging local problems
under the framework of service-learning projects. Similarly, the Founda-
tion for Moral Courage has produced 12 educational television programs
about ordinary individuals who engaged in acts of courage, featuring sto-
ries about the Righteous Among the Nations and of courageous figures
in relation to the Soviet Gulags or the more recent Balkan wars in Mace-
donia and Croatia. In 2001, the Foundation established a film student-
mentoring program at the School of Fine Arts in Boston College that
encourages film students to get involved in the production of films con-
cerning acts of moral courage. This resulted in the production of over
250 films during the past 18 years.24
So far, this introduction has laid out two reasons why the analysis of
the intense cultural boundary work involved in the pursuit of civil repair
may contribute to sustain civil courage in international migration. First, it
may cultivate the cultural competence that agents of civil repair may need
to more confidently navigate the chasm between breach and conformity
that often opens up in civil translation as they seek to broaden the horizon
of social inclusion within society while expecting the defensive reactions
of the guardians of the local social order. And second, it may put schol-
ars in the position of telling stories of courageous actors that agents of
civil repair on the ground may use as moral templates for the purpose of
cultivating civil courage among their fellow citizens.
The last part of this introduction will address an epistemological impli-
cation that the study of civil courage might have on civil sphere theory
and its practice. That is, scholars might have to turn to intervention in
order to fully grasp their object of analysis. After clarifying why this might
be the case and how explanation might coexist side by side with interven-
tion within civil sphere theory, it will be possible to understand why this
book constitutes the first leg in a broader exercise of civil intervention.
Understanding Civil Courage

and the Use of Intervention
Whenever in society the practice of cross-group solidarity reaches the
point of defying public imagination, often as a result of deep socio-
political divisions and extreme polarization, narrative interventions geared
to restore its imaginability inevitably breach societal expectations of cul-
tural appropriateness and elicit defensive reactions on the part of the
defenders of the local order. Civil courage commonly occurs right in the
midst of the social space that suddenly opens up between such breaches
and the anticipation of those reactions.
By engaging in narrative intervention alongside agents of civil repair
on the ground as they engage in civil translation, scholars may have a
chance to observe from within that social space and gain a more intimate
exposure through that window to the universe of experience in which
civil courage manifests itself as the local horizon of opportunities, con-
straints, and risks becomes more apparent and comes to bite on those who
experience it in the first person. Narrative intervention, in other words,
becomes a channel for enhanced observation and allows researchers to
decenter their site of analysis toward the very social location of agents of
civil repair whose civil courage they seek to understand.
Though this book does not directly engage in such an intervention, it
sets the stage for it. It gathers a series of stories about courageous civil
agents and links it from its very title to Holocaust memory by extending
the category of the Righteous Among the Nations to the context of inter-
national migration and by using the broader category of the “righteous
in international migration” as a “family resemblance,” and as a frame,
which brings together stories of courageous agents of civil repair that
in this book explicitly refer to the Holocaust with others that do not.
Together with civil activists on the ground, scholars may later deploy and
pilot such stories and their frame while connecting them to courageous
acts of cross-group solidarity by local agents of civil repair. Doing so will
allow them to assess to what extent that narrative intervention may help
increase the moral and social traction of those courageous acts in the eyes
of their audiences and how far it might inspire civil courage among the
latter along the lines suggested by Ignatieff and Taylor. This may not only
allow scholars to get a closer look at the fine mechanics of civil transla-
tion in the weaving of cross-group solidarity within society. Engaging in
20 C. TOGNATO
such intervention may also place them right in the very eye of the con-
tentious struggles over civil translation where civil courage may actually
occur, thereby providing them with a better vantage point for observa-
tion.
Over the years, the category of the Righteous Among the Nations has
been extended on a variety of occasions beyond its context of origin. For
example, it was evoked to facilitate the witnessing of rescue within the
context of genocide in Armenia,25 Rwanda,26 and Bosnia,27 in relation
to internal conflicts in Argentina (Casiro 2016), Chile (Bonnefoy 2016),
Guatemala (Brett 2016; Esparza et al. 2016), Colombia (Duncan 2017;
Escobar and Tamayo 2016; Giraldo 2016; Guerra 2016; Redacción IPad
2016; Tognato 2016a, b, c; Valencia 2017; Velásquez 2016; Wasserman
2017), and Sri Lanka (Hoole 2009; Stokes Dreier 2009) and with refer-
ence to massacres of Sikhs (Mander 2001) and Muslims (Mander 2009)
in India.
Analysts have seen value in echoing the category of the Righteous
Among the Nations outside its semantic context of origin for the pur-
pose of “confronting the role of passive bystanders” (Dudai 2012: 2), to
push perpetrators to take responsibility for their actions (Rosoux 2006:
493), and to undermine the binary logic of identity that homogenizes
people from other groups (Halpern and Weinstein 2004: 567, 579)28
through blanket prejudices and stereotypes29 and that ultimately dehu-
manizes them to the point of justifying aggression against them (Aiken
2010; Verdeja 2009: 63).
At the same time, scholars have also cautioned about the risks asso-
ciated with deploying the linkage between the Righteous Among the
Nations and rescuers. The framing of the righteous as national hero fig-
ures in Rwanda, for example, occasionally backfired and triggered resent-
ment (Rosoux 2006: 494, 498), bitterness, and alienation on the part of
the victims, thereby hindering the witnessing of the acts of cross-group
solidarity that were carried out by rescuers (Dudai 2012: 29). Victims,
after all, often resisted the idea of their agency being underplayed. They
rejected their being cornered into the role of pathetic victims by contrast
with heroic rescuers (Dudai 2012), and often insisted on the need to rep-
resent rescuers just as people who maintained their humanity in the midst
of atrocities (Mujawayo and Belhaddad 2005: 14). Some observers also
remark that within certain contexts of violence the categories of perpe-
trator and rescuer may blur (Rosoux 2006: 495; Waldorf 2009), thereby
further reducing the margin for cultural resonance between the category
of the Righteous Among the Nations and that of rescuer (Waldorf 2009:
113), while others recognize that in other settings rescuers often came
from the victims’ camp, unlike the Righteous Among the Nations who
generally belonged to the bystanders’ camp (Blustein 2016: 165–166;
Escobar and Tamayo 2016).
Scholars have also warned that within certain societal contexts, seman-
tic constraints may limit, or even hijack, the performativity of the cultural
resonance between the category of the Righteous Among the Nations and
that of rescue, on the one hand, and courageous actions by civil actors on
the ground, on the other (Escobar and Tamayo 2016: 125–126).
Extensions of the category of the Righteous Among the Nations to the
field of international migration have so far been quite sporadic. Bearing in
mind the risks and limits inherent in such extensions, this book will hope-
fully contribute to anchoring through them these stories of civil courage
in international migration more firmly into our public spheres at a time
at which it might be increasingly urgent to do so.
Some analysts of civil dynamics might feel at this point that such a
move toward intervention might distract them from their scholarly voca-
tion. They shouldn’t. Their genuine commitment to the ideals of the
civil sphere already exudes from the pages of their writings. There are
times, though, when the instantiation of those very ideals in our soci-
eties becomes compromised to a point that might demand more action.
That is when Martin Luther King, Jr.’s call to be true to what we said on
paper rings louder than ever (King, Jr. 1968). Nesting intervention into
the analysis of civil life as we seek to bring civil courage squarely into its
focus may provide one route to do so by further cultivating a more robust
disposition for civil action among students of democracy and civil society.
Notes
1. His prosecution marked an escalation in the US government’s crackdown
on migrant rescuers who in the previous 15 years had walked the Arizona
desert in search of missing migrants or for the remains of the dead and
regularly left jugs of water, canned beans, and blankets in the spots where
migrants were known to cross. See Jordan (2019).
2. “Jewish Activists Arrested After Protesting Migrant Detention on
Capitol Hill.” 2010. Democracynow, July 10. Retrieved Octo-
ber 17 (https://www.democracynow.org/2019/7/10/headlines/jewish_
activists_arrested_after_protesting_migrant_detention_on_capitol_hill).
22 C. TOGNATO
3. On the complexities associated with the cultural use of Holocaust memory

in Israel, see Alexander and Dromi (2011).
4. Breaching the horizon of the cultural expectations of their civil commu-
nity entails enacting cultural performative repertoires that do not belong
to it. The breaches may not only depart from expected pragmatic moves
within its respective settings. They may also introduce unexpected actors,
scripts, means of symbolic production, stages, audiences, background cul-
tural representations, or sources of social power. Or they may recombine
expected ones in unexpected ways. Furthermore, they may also disrupt the
cultural performative repertoires of reproach, correction, condemnation,
and stigmatization, by which local actors seek to repair the local social
order in response to a breach. See Tognato (2020).
5. Samuel Oliner in Geras (1995: 158).
6. Oliner and Oliner (1988: 127–129) and Tec (1986: 115–119, 127–128).
See also Manfred Wolfson in Baron ([1985] 1986: 186).
7. Friedman (1978) found that women were driven to rescue more than
men, while other authors have yielded contradictory findings in this
respect, thereby leaving the influence of gender undetermined.
8. Bauer et al. (1989: 76) indicated that political affiliation to left-wing
groups mattered in rescue and Tec found some corroboration of that.
Oliner and Oliner (1988: 159–160), on the contrary, found no correla-
tion between rescue and political affiliation.
9. Tec (1986: 137–139, 145–149), Oliner and Oliner (1988: 155–157),
Baron ([1985] 1986: 239–240), Oliner and Oliner (1989: 510–513), and
Paldiel (1989: 520; in Geras 1995: 157).
10. Huneke (1989: 489–490; in Geras 1995: 158).
11. Perry London (1970), Huneke ([1981] 1982: 146), Oliner (1989: 482),
Oliner (1984: 135), Tec (1986: 152, 154, in note 21; in Geras 1995:
172).
12. Baron ([1985] 1986: 243–244) and Oliner and Oliner (1988: 176) con-
tradict this point on social marginality. Paldiel (1989: 520), in turn,
objects to the idea that an adventurous trajectory might be a predictor
of a disposition to engage in rescue.
13. I am grateful to Nadya Jaworsky for bringing this to my attention.
14. “Bernhard Lichtenberg.” n.d. Yad Vashem. Retrieved October 17, 2019
(https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories/lichtenberg.html).
15. “Adélaïde Hautval.” n.d. Yad Vashem. Retrieved October 17, 2019
(https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/righteous-auschwitz/
hautval.asp).
16. “Odoardo Focherini.” n.d. Yad Vashem. Retrieved October 17, 2019
(http://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/family.html?language=en&itemId=
4014852).
17. “Johanna Eck.” n.d. Yad Vashem. Retrieved October 17, 2019 (https://
www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/righteous-women/eck.asp).
18. “Irena Sendler.” n.d. Yad Vashem. Retrieved October 17, 2019 (https://
www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories/sendler.html).
19. “André and Magda Trocmé, Daniel Trocmé.” n.d. Yad Vashem.
Retrieved October 17, 2019 (https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/
stories/trocme.html).
20. “Under the Wings of the Church: Greek Orthodox Metropoli-
tan Dimitrios Chrysostomos.” n.d. Yad Vashem. Retrieved October
17, 2019 (https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/righteous/
chrysostomos.asp).
21. “About the Righteous.” n.d. Yad Vashem. Retrieved October 17, 2019
(https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/about-the-righteous.html).
22. See also the Anne Frank Trust School Program at https://annefrank.org.
uk/education/schools-programme/.
23. “Zivilcourage - Trainings.” n.d. Mauthausen Komitee Österreich.
Retrieved October 17, 2019 (https://www.mkoe.at/jugendprojekte/
zivilcourage-trainings).
24. See website for The Foundation for Moral Courage at http://www.
moralcourage.us/.
25. See Hovannisian (1992: 173, 197; in Dudai 2012: 5). See also Miller and
Miller (1993) and Shirinian (2015).
26. See African Rights (2002), GARIWO, PRI (2002), PRI (2004a, b), Chré-
tien (2000), Vidal (2001), Staub (2003), Hatzfeld (2003), de Vulpian
(2004), George (2006), and Rosoux (2006: 492, 493).
27. See GARIWO and Kritz and Finci (2001).
28. In Dudai (2012: 21–22).
29. Halpern and Weinstein (2004: 569; in Dudai 2012: 3, 13, 21–22).
Bibliography
African Rights. 2002. Tributes to Courage. Kigali: African Rights.
Aiken, Nevin T. 2010. “Learning to Live Together: Transitional Justice and
Intergroup Reconciliation in Northern Ireland.” International Journal of
Transitional Justice 4(2): 166–188.
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2003. “On the Social Construction of Moral Universals:
The ‘Holocaust’ from War Crime to Trauma Drama.” In The Meanings of
Social Life, edited by Jeffrey C. Alexander. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 27–84.
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2006. The Civil Sphere. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, Jeffrey C., and Carlo Tognato, eds. 2018. The Civil Sphere in Latin
America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
24 C. TOGNATO
Alexander, Jeffrey C., and Shai M. Dromi. 2011. “Trauma Construction and
Moral Restriction: The Ambiguity of the Holocaust for Israel.” In Narrat-
ing Trauma: On the Impact of Collective Suffering, edited by Ron Eyerman,
Jeffrey C. Alexander, and Elizabeth Butler Breese. Boulder, CO: Paradigm
Publishers, pp. 107–132.
Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins
and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
Arendt, Hannah. 1961. Between Past and Future. London: Faber and Faber.
Arendt, Hannah. 1963. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.
New York: Viking Press.
Baron, L. 1986. “The Holocaust and Human Decency: A Review of Research on
The Rescue of Jews in Nazi Occupied Europe.” Humboldt Journal of Social
Relations 13, 237–251.
Bauer, Yehuda et al., eds. 1989. Remembering for the Future, vol. I. Oxford, UK:
Pergamon Press.
Bauman, Zygmunt. 1989. Modernity and The Holocaust. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press.
Blustein, Jeffrey. 2016. “Conclusion: On the Moral Value of Rescue and Remem-
bering Rescuers.” In Remembering the Rescuers of Victims of Human Rights
Crimes in Latin America, edited by Marcia Esparza and Carla De Ycaza. Lan-
ham: Lexington Books, pp. 165–180.
Bonnefoy, Pascale. 2016. “Bending the Rules: An Ambassador’s Quest to Save
Lives.” In Remembering the Rescuers of Victims of Human Rights Crimes in
Latin America, edited by Marcia Esparza and Carla De Ycaza. Lanham: Lex-
ington Books, pp. 25–56.
Brandstätter, Veronika, and Dieter Frey. 2003. “Kleine Schritte statt Helden-
taten.” Psychologie Heute 7: 67–69.
Brett, Roddy. 2016. “Strategic Rescue Responses to Genocide: The Guatemalan
Case.” In Remembering the Rescuers of Victims of Human Rights Crimes in
Latin America, edited by Marcia Esparza and Carla De Ycaza. Lanham: Lex-
ington Books, pp. 79–106.
Casiro, Jessica. 2016. “Argentine Rescuers: A Study on the ‘Banality of Good’.”
In Remembering the Rescuers of Victims of Human Rights Crimes in Latin
America, edited by Marcia Esparza and Carla De Ycaza. Lanham: Lexington
Books, pp. 145–164.
Chrétien, Jean-Pierre. 2000. “Le Rwanda piégé par son histoire.” Esprit 266–
267(8–9): 170–189.
De Vulpian, Laure. 2004. Rwanda. Un génocide oublié? Un procés pour mémoire.
Brussels: Complexe.
Dudai, Ron. 2012. “‘Rescues for Humanity’: Rescuers, Mass Atrocities, and
Transitional Justice.” Human Rights Quarterly 34(1): 1–38.
Duncan, Gustavo. 2017. “Los justos.” El Tiempo, January 11. Retrieved October
21, 2019. http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-16790691.
Escobar, Jenny, and Angie Tamayo. 2016. “From Rescue to Solidarity: (Re)
Humanizing Relationships for Social Transformation.” In Remembering the
Rescuers of Victims of Human Rights Crimes in Latin America, edited by
Marcia Esparza and Carla De Ycaza. Lanham: Lexington Books, pp. 125–
143.
Esparza, Marcia, and Zachary McKiernan. 2016. “Introduction: Why Remember
the Rescuers in Latin America?” In Remembering the Rescuers of Victims of
Human Rights Crimes in Latin America, edited by Marcia Esparza and Carla
De Ycaza. Lanham: Lexington Books, pp. 1–24.
Esparza, Marcia, Stephanie Alfaro, and Kristy Sanandres. 2016. “The Santo
Tomás Chichicastenango’s Municipal Firefighters: ‘Green Pines Covering the
Dead Bodies’.” In Remembering the Rescuers of Victims of Human Rights
Crimes in Latin America, edited by Marcia Esparza and Carla De Ycaza.
Lanham: Lexington Books, pp. 57–78.
Etzioni, Amitai. 1988. “The Banality of Altruism.” The World & I (July): 388–
392.
Flescher, Andrew. 2000. “Characterizing the Acts of Righteous Gentiles: A Mat-
ter of Duty or Supererogation?” Journal of Religion and Society 2: 1–10.
Fogelman, Eva. 1994. Conscience & Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holo-
caust. New York: Anchor Books.
Fogelman, Eva. 2002. “The Rescuer Self.” In The Holocaust and History, edited
by Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck. Bloomington, IN: University
of Indiana Press, pp. 667–672.
Frey, Dieter, et al. 2007. “‘zammgrauft’. Ein Training von Anti-Gewalt bis Zivil-
courage für Kinder und Jugendliche.” In Zivilcourage trainieren! Theorie und
Praxis, edited by Kai J. Jonas, Margarete Boos and Veronika Brandstätter.
Goettingen: Hogrefe, pp. 139–203.
Friedman, Philip. 1978. Their Brothers’ Keepers. New York: Holocaust Library.
Fromm, Erich. 1941. The Fear of Freedom. New York: Farrar & Rinehart.
Garfinkel, Harold. 1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
GARIWO, Gardens of the Righteous Worldwide. N.D. “Homepage.” Retrieved
October 21, 2019. https://en.gariwo.net/.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of
Culture.” In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic
Books, pp. 3–30.
George, Terry. 2006. “Smearing a Hero: Sad Revisionism over ‘Hotel Rwan-
da’.” Washington Post, May 10. Retrieved October 21, 2019. https://www.
washingtonpost.com/.
26 C. TOGNATO
Geras, Norman. 1995. “Richard Rorty and the Righteous Among the Nations.”
Journal of Applied Philosophy 12(2): 151–173.
Giraldo Ramírez, Jorge. 2016. “Los justos en nuestra guerra.” El Colombiano,
December 4. Retrieved October 21, 2019. https://www.elcolombiano.com/
opinion/columnistas/los-justos-en-nuestra-guerra-AF5502651.
Guerra, Weildler. 2016. “Los justos.” El Espectador, November 25. Retrieved
October 21, 2019. https://www.elespectador.com/opinion/opinion/los-
justos-columna-667408.
Hallie, Philip. 1994. Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le
Chambon and How Goodness Happened There. New York: Harper & Row.
Halpern, Jodi, and Harvey M. Weinstein. 2004. “Rehumanizing the Other:
Empathy and Reconciliation.” Human Rights Quarterly 26(3): 561–583.
Hamilton, V. Lee, and Herbert Kelman. 1989. Crimes of Obedience: Toward a
Social Psychology of Authority and Responsibility. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Harrison, Virginia. 2018. “Nauru Refugees: The Island Where Children Have
Given Up on Life.” BBC.com, September 1. Retrieved October 21, 2019.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45327058.
Harvey, Mike. 2019. “Sermon: Righteous Among the Nations.” June 15.
Retrieved October 21, 2019. https://rabbiharvey.wordpress.com/2019/06/
15/righteous-among-the-nations/.
Hatzfeld, Jean. 2003. Une saison de machettes. Paris: Seuil.
Hilberg, Raul. 1992. Perpetrator, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe,
1933–1945. New York: HarperCollins.
Hirschfeld Davis, Julie. 2018. “Trump Calls Some Unauthorized Immigrants
‘Animals’ in Rant.” The New York Times, May 16. Retrieved Octo-
ber 21, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/us/politics/trump-
undocumented-immigrants-animals.html.
Hoole, Rajan. 2009. “Sri Lanka: Ethnic Strife, Fratricide and the Peace vs.
Human Rights Dilemma.” Journal of Human Rights Practice 1(1): 120–139.
Hovannisian, Richard G. 1992. “Intervention and Shades of Altruism During
the Armenian Genocide.” In The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics,
edited by Richard G. Hovannisian. New York: St. Martin’s Press, pp. 173–
207.
Huneke, Douglas. [1981] 1982. “A Study of Christians who Rescued Jews dur-
ing the Nazi Era.” Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 9(1): 144–150.
Huneke, Douglas K. 1989. “Glimpses of Light in a Vast Darkness.” In Remem-
bering for the Future, vol. I, edited by Yehuda Bauer, et al. Oxford: Pergamon
Press, pp. 486–493.
Ignatieff, Michael. 2013. Civil Courage and the Moral Imagination. Cleveringa
Lecture, University of Leiden, November 26.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
SYMPTOMS.—An attack of chorea is usually preceded by more or less
failure of the general health and evidences of some mental
disturbance. It is quite common to be told by the parents of a child
suffering from chorea that the little patient had seemed unwell for
some time previous to the attack; that the appetite had failed, and
that the child had looked pale; that he had been irritable or excitable,
and at school the teacher had complained of restlessness or
inattention in the pupil. In a little girl who was brought to me recently
with her second attack of chorea her mother stated that for several
days before the outbreak the child had been in excessive spirits, and
that she had been singing loudly and in a peculiar manner. The
same symptoms had preceded the first attack. Sometimes nothing is
observed until it is found by the parents or teacher that there are
abnormal twitchings and movements of the limbs.
At first there is a general restlessness and fidgetiness. The child may

be punished at school for not keeping still or for dropping things.
Soon irregular movements of groups of muscles are seen. The
shoulder is shrugged or the fingers move spasmodically. At first the
patient is aware of the movements and tries to control them, but
before long the twitching and jerking are constant, and extend to
most of the voluntary muscles of the body. He is then unable to
control them for any length of time.
The sudden jerk of a limb followed by an odd grimace, the quick

protrusion of the tongue, and the rolling of the eyes or snapping of
the lids give a characteristic picture which can hardly be mistaken.
The extent of the movements varies in different cases. In some they

are slight and affect only certain muscles. Often the disorder is
confined to one lateral half of the body. In other cases the
movements involve all the limbs and the trunk, and are so violent
and constant that the patient does not seem to have a moment's
rest. The trunk may be suddenly drawn backward, then the arms are
extended or thrown up, and the legs flexed and tossed about with
great quickness. Sometimes the patient is thrown off the bed or from
the chair on which he may be to the floor.
The speech is often affected. The patient speaks in a thick or jerky
manner, as if the tongue were too large for the mouth, and saliva
usually flows in great quantities. Sometimes in bad cases there are
involuntary utterances made at frequent intervals.
The features undergo contortions continually, and when at rest

relapse into a condition of vacancy which makes the patient look
almost idiotic. The expression of a child with chorea is so peculiar
that the disease may almost be diagnosticated by this.
During sleep the movements usually cease, but generally the patient
is restless while asleep, and in some instances the irregular
movements continue even at this time.
The mental condition commonly shows some change. The child is

irritable and peevish, cries and laughs readily, or is sullen and
morose. Sometimes he is violent to those about him, but this is rare.
Intellectually the patient suffers somewhat. He is not able to study as
before, and the memory may be impaired. Sometimes there is a mild
form of dementia.
During the course of the disease there may be exacerbations, and

sometimes after convalescence has seemed established there are
relapses.
Recovery is gradual, and as the abnormal movements cease the

mental condition improves, and the patient regains his health without
any traces of the disease remaining.
We will now consider some of the symptoms separately. First, as to

disturbances of motion. As before remarked, the disorderly
movements occur soon after the general restlessness is seen. They
most commonly begin in one upper extremity. The hand is thrown
into various positions, the fingers are flexed and extended or
separated, and all of the movements occur with great rapidity. In a
day or two the whole arm is affected, and then the leg of the same
side is involved in the jerkings and twitchings. In many cases the
facial muscles are contorted, the mouth is pursed up or opened
wide, and then quickly twisted into some other shape. If the patient is
told to put out his tongue, it is protruded after a moment's hesitation,
and then suddenly retracted, the jaws coming together with a snap.
A smacking sound is made with the lips quite often, and words are
uttered involuntarily. The movements may remain confined to one
side of the body, constituting what is called hemichorea. This is quite
common, and the right side is rather more frequently involved than
the left. There is so great difference of opinion among authors on this
point that it is probable that one side is affected about as often as the
other. Of 252 cases which I have examined, 69 were right and 43 left
hemichoreas. Gerhard20 found in 80 cases of chorea that 32 were
unilateral; of these 20 were right and 12 were left. Sée, however,
found that in 97 of 154 cases the movements were either confined to
the left side or were more marked on that side. He states that in his
experience the proportion between left and right hemichorea is as 37
to 27. Pye-Smith in 33 cases of unilateral chorea found 15 on the
right and 18 on the left side. Many cases which begin as hemichorea
soon become general.
20 American Journal of Med. Sci.
The disease reaches its greatest severity in about two weeks, and if
the case is a bad one we find by this time all of the voluntary
muscles are in constant movement. At this time the French name for
chorea, folie musculaire, is most appropriate. Patients are often
unable to walk or to sit up, and sometimes they may be thrown from
the bed by violent spasmodic movements of the trunk. Strange as it
seems, patients rarely complain of fatigue, notwithstanding the
violent muscular exercise. This is probably because each set of
movements is of short duration and is constantly changing its seat.
As a rule, the movements cease completely during sleep or under an

anæsthetic. Sometimes occasional twitchings of muscles are seen in
sleep, and in rare instances we are told by the parents of a child with
chorea that the movements are as active in sleep as in the waking
hours.
The movements of chorea occur either while the limbs are at rest or
under the influence of voluntary effort. This fact has been pointed out
by Mitchell and by Gowers. In some cases the movements are most
marked when the patient is at rest. If a directed effort is made to use
the member for a time, the choreic movements are suspended. For
example, a patient may be able to carry a glass of water to the
mouth without spilling a drop, while a moment before the hand may
have been performing a continual dance. I have often observed that
while the limb to which the whole attention has been directed in
performing some movement has been steadied, the other limbs
become violently agitated.
In another class of cases the movements are comparatively slight

when the part is at rest, but when a motion is attempted the disorder
of the muscles is so much increased that it is almost impossible for
the act to be completed. The patient is told to pick up some small
object: he throws the hand out toward it, and it is jerked away before
he can grasp it. He again puts the hand forward, reaches the object,
and the fingers open and shut and sprawl over the article before it is
taken up. Sometimes it cannot be grasped at all. This has been
called choreic ataxia, but it is only one type of the cases commonly
seen.
This brings us to the influence of the will on the movements in

chorea. There are some cases, as mentioned above, in which the
movements may be controlled by the will for a brief period, but they
will sooner or later return. In other cases it is quite impossible for the
patient to check the movements at all, and one frequently sees in a
case of hemichorea the sound hand used to grasp the other, so as to
control the movements. We have referred to this because of
Niemeyer's opinion that corporeal punishment would shorten an
attack of chorea.
Chorea is sometimes confined to a single muscle or group of

muscles. When limited in this way it is generally in the head, face, or
perhaps in the shoulder. These cases of localized chorea have been
spoken of by Mitchell as habit chorea.21 They are often very
obstinate in resisting treatment, and sometimes last during life.
21 Lectures on Nervous Diseases, p. 146.
PARALYSIS.—Not infrequently in chorea there is paralysis to a greater

or less extent. It is generally one-sided, and most often involves the
upper extremity. The limb affected is the one in which the
movements were most violent. The arm may hang entirely powerless
or it may be only enfeebled, and feeling to the patient like a dead
weight. The paralysis always recovers with the chorea or soon after.
POST-PARALYTIC CHOREA.—Under this term Mitchell and Charcot have

described a variety of chorea which is seen in patients after an
attack of hemiplegia. The movements are chiefly on voluntary effort,
and are those of inco-ordination. They come on from one to several
months after an attack of unilateral paralysis, and are sometimes
seen in cases in which almost complete recovery has taken place.
Mitchell has reported22 a case which was under my care for several
years, and which he saw in consultation with me. This patient had
two attacks of left hemiplegia, the last being fatal. After the first
attack there was great gain of power to use the arm and leg, but the
movements were performed awkwardly and with an irregular jerking
movement. A post-mortem examination revealed a spot of softening
the size of a filbert in the left corpus striatum, which was apparently
recent, and a point of red degeneration in the right crus cerebri. The
vessels at the base of the brain were extensively atheromatous.
22 American Journal of the Med. Sci.
Of the electrical condition of the muscles in chorea but little is known.

Rosenthal23 found increase of faradic contractility in three cases of
hemichorea, and the galvanic test showed a high degree of
excitability, demonstrated by the fact that weak currents gave
contractions at cathodic closure, or even tetanic contractions, and
also contractions were produced at cathodic opening.
23 Ziemssen's Cyclopædia, loc. cit., p. 434.
The affection of speech which is so common in chorea is due to
disordered action of the laryngeal muscles, or it may be from choreic
action of the abdominal muscles. Sometimes it is chiefly from the
awkwardness of the tongue. The usual form of trouble is that the
patient speaks in a staccato manner and the syllables seem as if
they were driven out. When the chorea is in the laryngeal muscles,
the tone and pitch of the voice are altered.
Chorea of the heart is sometimes spoken of, but it has never been
satisfactorily demonstrated that there is any real disorder of cardiac
rhythm in chorea. It is not unusual in chorea to meet with over-action
or palpitation of the heart, but these conditions do not necessarily
depend on the disease.
Valvular murmurs are often met with from the beginning of an attack.
In some instances they are the result of an endocarditis, but
frequently they are functional or anæmic. They are usually heard at
the apex. Sometimes there is a reduplication of the first sound,
giving the idea of a want of synchronism in action of the two sides of
the heart; but this is probably not the result of chorea of the heart. I
recall one patient, a child of seven or eight years, in whom the
reduplication of the first sound was very distinct during an attack of
St. Vitus's dance. She was brought to me at the beginning of a
second attack a year later, and the reduplication of the cardiac
sounds was heard again, so it is likely that it had continued during
the interval, and was probably a congenital condition.
The pupils are commonly dilated in chorea and respond sluggishly to

light.
REFLEXES.—I have examined the condition of the patellar reflex in 50

cases. In 26 of these it was present in normal degree, in 15 it was
diminished, and in 9 it could not be excited. In one patient it was
absent during the height of the choreic movements, but could be
readily produced after the patient had recovered. The condition of
the reflexes has also been examined by Joffroy and Saric,24 and they
found that of 16 cases of chorea the reflexes were abolished or
diminished in 12.
24 L'Union médicale, Sept. 22, 1885.
SENSIBILITY.—Authors state that disorders of sensation are met with

in chorea, such as localized anæsthesia or a general hyperæsthesia:
I have never met with any such instances. Patients often complain of
pain in the joints or in the limbs, and this may be unaccompanied
with swelling or tenderness on pressure. Tenderness on pressure
over the vertebræ is rare in my experience, although others speak of
its being of frequent occurrence. Mental disorders are generally
present, but only to a slight extent. There is almost always irritability
of temper and peevishness. The most sweet-tempered children
become cross and perverse, laugh immoderately at trifling things, or
cry as readily if they are annoyed. There is generally failure of
memory and incapacity for study or thought. In most cases, however,
this exists to so slight an extent as not to be noticed except on very
close observation. Sometimes there is marked mental disorder
amounting almost to imbecility, and occasionally the mental
weakness remains for some time after the motor disorders have
recovered.
The condition of the pulse is generally unchanged, but sometimes it

is abnormally frequent. The temperature, according to Von
Ziemssen, is unchanged.
The nutrition generally suffers. The patient rapidly loses flesh, and
becomes anæmic; the skin grows dry, and the hair gets harsh. The
digestion is apt to be disordered. The tongue is large, pallid, and
coated thickly, and there is sometimes nausea or vomiting. The
appetite is not good. The bowels are often constipated. The urine
has been examined by several observers. Bence Jones found an
excess of urea at the height of the disease. Albumen is not present
except accidentally, but there is usually an excess of phosphates. In
several cases in which we have examined the urine at the Infirmary
for Nervous Diseases we found that the specific gravity was high
while the chorea was at its height, but fell to normal as the patient
recovered.
Chorea is spoken of as acute and chronic, but all cases are more or
less chronic. Those cases which last eight or ten weeks may be
considered acute, while those running on for months or years are
properly called chronic.
DURATION.—Considerable difference of opinion exists as to the

duration of chorea. Some writers speak of three or four weeks as an
average attack. Gray and Tuckwell, in a series of cases treated by
the expectant plan,25 found an average duration of ten weeks.
Occasionally a patient is seen with an attack of chorea which lasts
only a few days. The parents of a little patient whom I saw a few
days ago assured me that her second attack lasted only a week.
They are educated and intelligent persons whose statement can be
relied upon.
25 Lancet, Nov. 28, 1876.
The course is not always regular. In some cases the disease

gradually reaches a crisis, remains stationary for a few days, and
then by degrees declines; in others there are exacerbations. The
patient will seem to be almost well, and then become very much
worse for a time. Relapses are not infrequent, and are generally
caused by fright or excitement.
The recurrence of attacks of chorea is well known. A child who has

had the disease one year may have it a second or third year. It is
most likely to recur in the spring. Some cases have as many as five
attacks, but as puberty approaches the attacks are lighter, and finally
cease. Of 282 cases to which I have referred, 198 were first attacks,
47 had had chorea twice; 23 were in their third attack, 8 in the fourth,
and 3 in the fifth attack.
TERMINATION.—The disease in most instances terminates in complete

cure, but sometimes there is nervousness or want of co-ordination
remaining for a time. Rarely the inco-ordination or a certain
quickness in movement becomes permanent.
Death is a rare termination of chorea except in pregnancy. If it does
occur, it is usually from some complication. In pregnancy the
mortality is great. Of 64 cases collected by Wenzel, 18 died. In
Philadelphia, in seventy-four years from 1807 to 1881, there have
been but 64 deaths from chorea; of these, 38 were under twenty
years, and 26 over that age.
Hutchinson reports a fatal case in a boy of twelve years.26 After

complaining of headache and rheumatic pains for several days,
choreic movements began. They soon became general and very
violent. At the end of two weeks he was admitted to the
Pennsylvania Hospital. At this time the patient was so extremely
convulsed that it was impossible to keep him in bed without tying
him. The movements continued but little abated, and the child died in
two days.
26 Philadelphia Med. Times, vol. vi. p. 535.
Another case of unusual interest is reported by Hunt.27 The patient, a

man of twenty-nine years, had suffered from chorea of the face and
arms for years. In consequence of a fall on the pavement he
fractured the left humerus. The movements were immediately
exaggerated, and in spite of a carefully adjusted splint it was
impossible to keep the arm at rest. The fragments were in a state of
constant movement, and the points of bone threatened to penetrate
the skin. The skin was so much excoriated that it was determined to
dispense with the splint and attempt to keep the limb at rest by the
administration of morphia hypodermically in half-grain doses three
times daily. This failed to keep the arm quiet, and the seat of fracture
became greatly inflamed. No form of appliance or medication
succeeded in keeping the arm at rest, and the patient finally sank
and died from exhaustion on the tenth day after admission to the
hospital. The post-mortem examination revealed no gross lesion of
the brain or cord. No microscopic examination was made of the
brain.
27 Pennsylvania Hospital Reports, vol. ii.
MORBID ANATOMY AND PATHOLOGY.—In a disease so seldom fatal as
chorea it is not surprising that there have been but few post-mortem
examinations made. In the earlier autopsies, before the microscope
was extensively used, but little of value was recorded. Sée, who
collected 84 cases in which post-mortem examinations were made,
reported that in 16 no changes were found in the nervous system. In
32 there were lesions in the brain and nervous centres, usually
softening and tuberculosis, and in the remainder inflammatory
changes in the serous membranes. In 29 there were evidences of
heart disease. Sée considered that but few cases of death in chorea
were caused by inflammatory diseases of the heart, but that the
majority should be referred to nervous excitement and anæmia.
Ogle28 in a report of 96 cases of chorea mentions 16 which were

fatal. Post-mortem examinations were made in all of these. Cardiac
lesions were found in 13. In 10 of these deposits were found upon
the valves, and in 3 there was some change in the pericardium. He
speaks of having noted congestion of the nervous centres six times,
and softening of the cord once.
28 Brit. and For. Med.-Chir. Review, Jan., 1868.
In all of 11 autopsies reported by Pye-Smith29 there were cardiac

lesions found. In every case old or recent deposits were observed
upon the valves. In two instances the heart was hypertrophied, and
in one there was pericarditis. Changes in the nervous system were
less often found by this writer. In 1 case there was hyperæmia of the
cord, and in 3 cerebral hyperæmia.
29 Guy's Hospital Reports, 1874.
Dickinson found in 22 fatal cases of chorea 17 in which the heart

was diseased. “In every instance making up the large tale of cardiac
disease there were recent vegetations on the mitral valve, and often
also elsewhere.”
In the fatal case of Hutchinson referred to above the heart was found
diseased, the aortic valves were incompetent, the leaflets being
swollen and softened, and the aorta was atheromatous above the
sinus of Valsalva.
Of late years a number of careful autopsies have been made in

cases of chorea. The brain and spinal cord have been closely
examined, and in almost every instance some lesion has been found
in both of these organs.
Steiner reported in 1868 the results of post-mortem examinations in

3 fatal cases of chorea. In 1 case he found cerebro-spinal anæmia,
serous effusion into the spinal canal, and proliferation of the
connective tissue in the upper part of the cord; and in another
hyperæmia of the brain and cord.
Elischer,30 who reports a fatal case in a parturient woman who had

an attack of chorea in her eighth year, two in her sixteenth year, and
another in a previous pregnancy, found at the autopsy hyperæmia
and œdema of the brain and gray substance of the cord.
Microscopically, the brain showed fatty, amyloid, and pigmentary
changes in the nerve-elements and vessels of the large central
ganglia, small secondary extravasations of blood in the connective
tissue, and numerous emboli in the smallest vessels, especially in
the cortex. In the spinal cord there was seen abundant proliferation
of nuclei in the adventitia of the vessels. In the central canal serum
was found, and the surrounding connective tissue was harder than
usual.
30 Cyclopædia of the Practice of Medicine, Von Ziemssen, vol. xiv. p. 450.
Dickinson has contributed an excellent paper on the pathology of

chorea.31 He relates the particulars of the autopsies in 7 fatal cases
in which he personally made microscopical examination of the brain
and spinal cord. He also adds the results of post-mortem
examinations in 17 other cases at St. George's Hospital and at the
Hospital for Sick Children. In all of the 7 cases in which microscopic
examinations of the brain and cord were made there were found
hyperæmia of both of these structures, in many instances
hemorrhages into the substance of the nervous tissues, dilatation of
the smaller vessels, and in chronic cases sclerotic changes in the
course of the vessels. “The first visible change,” he remarks, “would
seem to be the injection or distension of the arteries, succeeded by
extrusion of their contents, to the irritation and injury of the
surrounding tissue.” The changes seemed to affect both brain and
cord in all cases. The parts of the brain most constantly affected lay
between the base and the floor of the lateral ventricles in the track of
the middle cerebral arteries, the substantia perforata, the corpora
striata, and the beginning of the Sylvian fissures. “Of the cord no
region was exempt, but perhaps the cervical and dorsal regions were
usually more affected than the lumbar. With regard to the vertical or
physiological divisions of the cord, these all, whether white or gray,
shared in the vascular destruction; this condition, however, was
usually most marked in the vessels belonging to or in connection
with the lateral part of the gray matter about the root of each
posterior horn. And it is to be observed that this was also the chosen
situation of the more definite and special changes, whether
hemorrhagic (as in two instances), sclerose, or exudatory. Speaking
generally, the chosen seats of the choreic changes are the parts of
the brain which lie between the beginning of the middle cerebral
arteries and the corpora striata—the parta perforata; and in the cord
the central portion of each lateral mass of gray matter comprising the
root of each posterior horn.”
31 Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, vol. xli. p. 1, 1876.
The embolic theory of chorea has been held by several investigators,

among them Hughlings-Jackson. It is undoubtedly an attractive and
reasonable view, especially when we consider the large proportion of
cases in which there is valvular disease of the heart. Dickinson,
however, does not consider this hypothesis tenable. In none of the
cases in which he made post-mortem examinations did he find
evidences of embolism. “In none of the instances described were
decolorized fibrin, detached clots, or signs of impaction detected,
and the erraticism of embolic accident was wanting: the constancy
indeed with which the changes repeated themselves in certain
positions, and the equality with which they affected both sides of the
body, are conclusive objections to this hypothesis. The corpora
striata, for example, were affected with almost absolute symmetry,
notwithstanding that these bodies receive their blood respectively
from the right and left carotids and different parts of the aortic arch.”
Rheumatism is associated with or precedes chorea in a large

proportion of cases, and this was pointed out by Kirkes in 1850 and
again in 1863. This connection between rheumatism and chorea,
and the frequent occurrence of endocarditis in chorea, has led some
authors to believe that the endocarditis is always rheumatic, and that
the chorea is the result of the endocarditis. Dickinson, however,
points out that in cases in which there is a distinct history of the
chorea beginning suddenly from fright there are often well-marked
cardiac murmurs heard. He believes that in all cases of chorea in
which there are cardiac murmurs they are due to endocarditis, and
suggests that in these cases from fright the endocarditis is due to
irregularity of cardiac action. This, of course, is mere hypothesis, and
we must bear in mind that in all cases of chorea there is anæmia,
and that the murmur may be purely functional.
H. C. Wood, in a communication read before the College of

Physicians of Philadelphia,32 gives his views of the pathology of
chorea, based upon the results of post-mortem examinations made
in a number of dogs who had the disease. He believes the history of
chorea to be this: “Owing to emotional disturbance, sometimes
stopping of various vessels of the brain, or sometimes the presence
of organic disease, there is an altered condition of the ganglionic
cells throughout the nerve-centres. If the cause is removed and the
altered condition of the nerve-cells goes only so far, it remains what
we call a functional disease. If it goes so far that the cells show
alteration, we have an organic disease of the nervous system.”
32 Philada. Med. News, May 30, 1885.
In two dogs which were choreic the movements continued after

section of the cord. This shows that in dogs, at any rate, the
movements originate in the cord. In four instances of canine chorea
in which Wool made autopsies there were found in the cords of three
mild grades of infiltration of leucocytes in the gray matter. In the
fourth, in which the dog had died of the disease, the ganglion-cells
were degenerated, and in some places had disappeared. He
concludes, therefore, that choreic movements may depend upon a
diseased condition of the motor cells of the cord.
Although there are several recorded cases of human chorea in which

lesions of the spinal ganglionic cells have been found, we cannot
believe that this can be a constant lesion in chorea. The disease is
too transient in many cases, and presents too many variations and
anomalies, for the cord to be always the seat of the diseased
condition.
In an interesting paper read by Angel Money before the London

Medical and Chirurgical Society in 1885 he detailed some
experiments in which, by injecting a fluid containing arrowroot,
starch-granules, or carmine into the carotids of animals, he produced
movements closely resembling chorea; and this was found to be
associated always with embolism of the capillaries of the cord. In the
discussion which followed Broadbent and Sturges expressed their
disbelief in the embolic origin of chorea in man. Hughlings-Jackson
said that he held the view of the cerebral origin of chorea, one of his
reasons being the frequency with which the face-muscles are
affected in this disease.
The probabilities are that in chorea there is a disordered condition of

the brain and cord more or less general. The lesions are no doubt
slight in mild cases of short duration, but in severe cases of long
standing there occur well-marked changes in portions of both brain
and cord. We cannot do better than to sum up the pathology of
chorea in the words of Dickinson: “A widely-distributed hyperæmia of
the nervous centres, not due to any mechanical mischance, but
produced by causes mainly of two kinds—one a morbid, probably a
humoral, influence which may affect the nervous centres as it affects
other organs and tissues; the other, irritation in some mode, usually
mental, but sometimes what is called reflex, which especially
belongs to and disturbs the nervous system, and affects persons
differently according to the inherent mobility of their nature.”
DIAGNOSIS.—The only diseases for which chorea may be mistaken

are paralysis agitans and disseminated sclerosis. The former occurs
only in adult life, and the tremor is of a regular rhythmical character.
In the latter the tremor occurs only on voluntary effort, and is also
more regular than the movements of chorea. There are forms of
congenital sclerosis seen in children which closely resemble chorea.
Here the duration of the disease and the association of contractures
with it distinguish it from chorea.
Hysterical subjects have a form of chorea which can only be

differentiated from the true disorder by noting the general hysterical
character of the case and the result of treatment, which strongly
influences the will-power of the patient.
PROGNOSIS.—In the great majority of cases this is favorable. If the

disease occurs in childhood and is without complications, recovery
generally takes place spontaneously after a few weeks. Should the
movements be violent and continuous, so as to interfere with sleep
and the taking of food, or should there be any complication, such as
acute rheumatism or cardiac disorder, then the prospect of recovery
is not so good.
The prognosis as to relapses should be given with caution. If in a

child, it is possible that there will be a return of the disease after a
longer or shorter interval. It is not likely to recur until after several
months, usually at about the same season the following year. As the
child grows older the intervals become longer, and it may safely be
asserted that after puberty is passed and bodily development
completed there will be no more returns of the affection.
The cure is usually complete. It must be remembered, however, that

for some time after an apparently complete cure there may be slight
inco-ordination of movements, particularly in the arms and the face.
These are shown in the unnecessary haste in making uncertain
motions or in slight grimaces, or if excited an awkwardness in the
use of the fingers.
Death is a rare termination in uncomplicated cases, especially in

children. The fatal cases are generally when acute rheumatism has
been associated with the chorea or when there has been a fracture
or an injury as a complication.
In Sée's statistics there is a mortality of 5.7 per cent. in 158 cases in

the Children's Hospital. In adults, and more particularly in pregnant
women, death is more common. Wenzel's cases referred to above
gave a mortality of 27.3 per cent.
The cause of death in chorea may be from the intensity of the

disease, and in this case the symptoms are generally violent from
the outset, increase to an extreme extent, and then collapse and
coma come on. The movements may cease when the collapse
occurs, but they may continue to the last, growing gradually less until
death.
TREATMENT.—A vast number of remedies have been popular in this

disease from all ages. The medicine which is most generally
depended upon at the present day is arsenic. It is advised by most
writers, and in my own experience is decidedly the most reliable
remedy for chorea which we know. The best way to administer it is in
the form of Fowler's solution, and it should be given in large doses. I
have given the bromide of arsenic, but did not find it superior to
Fowler's solution. The amount of arsenic which can be safely borne
by children with chorea is surprising to those who have not had
experience in its administration. The medicine should be given in
gradually increasing doses until the toxic effects are well marked or
until the patient is convalescing. In a child of six years three drops
may be given to begin with, three times a day. One drop additional
should be added to the dose each day, and the child soon acquires a
remarkable tolerance of the drug. As much as twelve or fifteen drops
at a dose is borne by a child of eight years. If vomiting or much
œdema of the face occurs, the medicine should be stopped for a day
or two, and then the original dose should be taken, to be again
increased as before.
Seguin recommends that the patient should begin again with the
dose at which tolerance ceased. For instance, if vomiting occurred
after a dose of nine drops, he stops the medicine for a day, and
begins again with eight drops. I have found that sometimes this
causes vomiting again, and I think it preferable to resume the
medicine with a small dose.
It is often seen that a patient becomes worse during the first few
days that the arsenic is taken, but improvement generally begins
after a week of the arsenical treatment, and is well marked after two
weeks.
In obstinate cases it is of marked advantage to give the arsenic

hypodermically. Cases which do not yield to the drug when given by
the mouth often improve at once when it is given hypodermically.
Chronic cases which have resisted all forms of medication
sometimes are cured by hypodermic injections of arsenic. For giving
arsenic in this way it is best to use Fowler's solution, made without
the compound spirit of lavender. It is less likely to cause abscess to
form at the point of puncture.
Other remedies enjoy a reputation in the treatment of chorea.

Sulphate of zinc is relied upon by many, and it is the means which
Ross recommends. It should be given in increasing doses like
arsenic, and very large doses may often be taken without disturbing
the stomach. Trousseau, Hammond, and Hamilton favor strychnia,
but I have had no experience in its use.
Cimicifuga and conium are both often beneficial in their effects. I

have seen the former do good when arsenic had failed. Conium to
be efficacious must be given in large doses. Eserine and
hyoscyamine have both been successfully employed, the former by
Bouchut, and the latter by Oulmont and Laurent. Recently,
DaCosta33 has reported, in a clinical lecture at the Pennsylvania
Hospital, a case of very severe chorea successfully treated with
hyoscyamine. The patient was a boy of eleven years, and the
disorder had followed an attack of acute rheumatism. He was given
1/100 gr. of hyoscyamine three times a day.
33 Philada. Med. Times, Jan. 23, 1886.
Ziegler34 has recorded several cases which recovered under the use
of nitrite of amyl. The bromides and chloral are useful adjuncts to
treatment in case of sleeplessness or mental irritability. Cases of
cure by the use of chloral alone have been reported. Bouchut gave a
girl of fourteen and a half years, with chorea and dementia, 45 grains
of chloral a day for twenty-seven days. She slept most of the time,
but improvement was seen on the fifth day, and cure was completed
on the twenty-eighth day of the use of the chloral. Electricity has
been efficient in the hands of many writers. I have found
galvanization of the spine to produce a quieting effect in some
cases.
34 Ibid., vol. vi. p. 486.
Iron is always of use in chorea; it may be given during the course of

the disease, and is generally necessary in convalescence. Cod-liver
oil or malt extract should be given in feeble persons.
It is scarcely necessary to mention the other remedies which have

been recommended. DaCosta has used the bromide of iron. H. C.
Wood has used a preparation of skunk cabbage, and there are a
great number of other remedies which have been found of value.
Next to the internal means come external applications. Baths and

frictions are useful in their effect on the general health. The ether
spray to the spine or the application of an ice-bag for ten minutes
once or twice daily is sometimes found to assist the other means.
Cold douches have been advised by some, but they may do harm.
The care of the general health of the patient is of first importance,
and his surroundings should be as quiet as possible.
It is of the greatest value in bad cases to place the patient in bed and
keep him there until the symptoms improve. John Van Bibber of
Baltimore has treated a number of cases of chorea successfully by
keeping them secluded in a darkened room. Such an extreme
degree of isolation is not often necessary, and it might make a child
more nervous.
In children the patient should always be taken from school and kept
from exciting play. Plenty of fresh air and wholesome food should be
insisted upon. Change of air to the mountains or to the seashore
often effects a cure in a short time.
Some cases do not appear to be benefited by any treatment. These

are the hereditary form of chorea and some of the localized choreas.
The latter are often helped or cured by the hypodermic use of
arsenic even in long-standing cases.
ATHETOSIS.
BY WHARTON SINKLER, M.D.
This disease was first described by Hammond in his work on Diseases of the Nervous System in 1871,
and cases have since been reported by many observers, among them Clifford Allbutt, Claye Shaw,
Eulenburg, Oulmont, and Gowers. The disease is named by Hammond from the word ἀθετος, without
fixed position.1 The principal features are an inability to retain the fingers and toes in any position in
which they may be placed, and the continual movements which persist in the parts—a condition called
by Gowers mobile spasm.
1 Diseases of the Nervous System, p. 722.
Athetosis is often connected with impaired mental powers; many of Shaw's cases were in imbecile
children.
The movements of athetosis are not confined to the hand in all cases, but they are sometimes met with
in the foot, and even in the muscles of the face and back.
The following is Hammond's original case:2 “J. P. R——, aged thirty-three, a native of Holland, consulted
Hammond Sept. 13, 1869. His occupation was bookbinding, and he had the reputation, previous to his
present illness, of being a first-class workman. He was of intemperate habits. In 1860 he had an
epileptic paroxysm, and since that time, to the date of his first visit to me, had a fit about once in six
weeks. In 1865 he had an attack of delirium tremens, and for six weeks thereafter was unconscious,
being more or less delirious during the whole period. Soon after recovering his intelligence he noticed a
slight sensation of numbness in the whole of the right upper extremity and in the toes of the same side.
At the same time severe pain appeared in these parts, and complex involuntary movements ensued in
the fingers and toes of the same side.
“At first the movements of the fingers were to some extent under the control of his will, especially when
this was strongly exerted and assisted by his eyesight, and he could, by placing his hand behind him,
restrain them to a still greater degree. He soon, however, found that his labor was very much impeded,
and he had gradually been reduced from time to time to work requiring less care than the finishing, at
which he had been very expert.
“The right forearm, from the continual action of the muscles, was much larger than the other, and the
muscles were hard and developed like those of a gymnast. When told to close his hand he held it out at
arm's length, clasped the wrist with the other hand, and then, exerting all his power, succeeded, after at
least half a minute, in flexing the fingers, but instantaneously they opened again and resumed their
movements.
“In this patient there was impairment of intellect, his memory was enfeebled, and his ideas were dull.
There was no paralysis of any part of the body, but there was slight tremor of both upper extremities.
The involuntary movements were of the right arm, and continued during sleep. Sensation was normal.
The spasm of the muscles causes severe pain in the arm, and keeps him from sleeping at night.”
Hammond used various remedies without relief, and had the patient under his charge for many years.
Finally, he showed the patient to the American Neurological Society at the annual meeting in 1883, with
almost complete relief to the movements as a result of nerve-stretching.
2 Ibid.
Athetosis is found in two forms—the hemiplegic and the bilateral varieties. In the former there has
usually been an attack of hemiplegia more or less marked, or there has been an epileptic fit or
unconsciousness from alcohol, as in Case I. There is often hemianæsthesia or some disorder of

The Courage For Civil Repair Narrating The Righteous in International Migration 1St Ed Edition Carlo Tognato Full Chapter

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Courage For Civil Repair Narrating The Righteous in International Migration 1St Ed Edition Carlo Tognato Full Chapter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Courage for Civil Repair: Narrating

the Righteous in International Migration

The Courage for

More information about this series at

The Courage for Civil

Cover illustration: imagedepotpro/E+/Getty Images

This extraordinary volume collects eight examples of civil righteousness,

with a narrative extension of the category “Righteous Among the Na-

project “Migration and Social Inequality: Cultural Sociological Perspec-

Arlington, USA Carlo Tognato

“Given this moment of heightened xenophobia and nationalism, this book

each chapter sheds light on exemplary stories of community mobilization,

1 Introduction: Understanding Civil Courage in

Part I Righteous, Between Yesterday and Today

2 The Righteous of the Transnation: Jews, Muslims, and a

3 “We Are Jewish and We Want to Help You”: Righteous

4 Righteous Doctors: Reacting to the Inhumane Treatment

Part II Righteous, Today

5 When Saving Lives Becomes a Crime: Performances

6 The Courage of Piety: Civil Solidarity and the Dead in

7 Solidary Cuisine: Las Patronas Facing the Central

8 Reaching Across: Migrant Support Activism on a Divided

9 “We Always Have Been and Always Will Be a Sanctuary

Part III Conclusion

10 Conclusion: The Public Performance of Civil

Jeffrey C. Alexander is Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology

Volker M. Heins is Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Advanced

research project “Postwar Diaspora(s)” is funded by the Austrian Science

Introduction: Understanding Civil Courage

International migration has always been a field of suffering as much as one

© The Author(s) 2020 1

become compromised and, as Alexander and Tognato (2018: 2) explain,

High Commissioner for Human Rights noted that “humanitarian aid is

an effort at prompting Israeli families to hide African asylum-seekers and

weave more encompassing forms of cross-group solidarity within a given

As far as personality is concerned, scholars have emphasized the impor-

Our Cases of Civil Courage

performances and features as its spokesperson Ármin Langer, a Hungar-

had excommunicated them. Arteaga-Botello stresses that, although over

Cultivating Civil Courage by Leveraging

normative commitment to cross-group solidarity that may in turn inspire

Understanding Civil Courage

3. On the complexities associated with the cultural use of Holocaust memory

At first there is a general restlessness and fidgetiness. The child may

The sudden jerk of a limb followed by an odd grimace, the quick

The extent of the movements varies in different cases. In some they

The features undergo contortions continually, and when at rest

The mental condition commonly shows some change. The child is

During the course of the disease there may be exacerbations, and

Recovery is gradual, and as the abnormal movements cease the

We will now consider some of the symptoms separately. First, as to

As a rule, the movements cease completely during sleep or under an

In another class of cases the movements are comparatively slight

This brings us to the influence of the will on the movements in

Chorea is sometimes confined to a single muscle or group of

PARALYSIS.—Not infrequently in chorea there is paralysis to a greater

POST-PARALYTIC CHOREA.—Under this term Mitchell and Charcot have

Of the electrical condition of the muscles in chorea but little is known.

The pupils are commonly dilated in chorea and respond sluggishly to

REFLEXES.—I have examined the condition of the patellar reflex in 50

SENSIBILITY.—Authors state that disorders of sensation are met with

The condition of the pulse is generally unchanged, but sometimes it

DURATION.—Considerable difference of opinion exists as to the