Heroes are not extraordinary people—they are ordinary people who did the extraordinary in a time of evil.

“Ordinary Heroes” is a growing collection of over fifty stories of rescue and survival, in which ordinary people helped or saved threatened neighbors, friends, acquaintances, and even complete strangers during war and genocide.

The people whose stories are in shared in this collection come from different countries and historical periods: the Holocaust in Europe, Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Rwanda.

There is nothing unique about these people—they are young and old, poor and rich, educated and uneducated, rural and urban, religious and atheist, of every ethnicity and nationality. What marked them as extraordinary was their heroic action.

What motivated them to act the way they did? Why did they risk their lives to help those threatened with persecution or death by their own group when so many others refused the call to action?

For many, this is the first time they have told their stories, with some risking their lives and reputation again in the telling.

While every story is unique and different, they all point to an uplifting but unsettling truth: that each of us could have made a noble choice in the midst of evil.

This collection shows us what was possible in the past conflict and genocide as well as how we could choose to live today and in the future.

We hope this collection will inspire the viewer to reflect on the noble choices that can be made every day in their own communities wherever injustice exists.

We invite you to read and listen to these stories with empathy and connect with the hero within yourself.