Tali Nates awarded the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award
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Alumna recognised with international award for education and activist role.
The Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award (AHMA) was presented to the director and founder of the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre, Avital “Tali” Nates (BA Hons 1994) for her part in South Africa’s efforts to remember those who died in the Holocaust.
The AHMA is awarded annually to a personality or organisation that is committed to commemorating the crimes of National Socialism and thus sets an example within the universality of this injustice and its consequences for all of humanity. It was launched in 2006 by the Austrian NGO Austrian Service Abroad.
It was the first time this award was conferred upon someone in Africa.
“It is a great honour to receive this award,” she said via Twitter.
Nates has lectured throughout the world about Holocaust education, genocide prevention, reconciliation and human rights. She has participated in Holocaust education missions to Eastern Europe, as well as educational missions in South Africa and Rwanda.
The head of the cultural policy section of the Austrian Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Emil Brix said during the ceremony held at the Austrian Embassy on 28 October 2021 that Holocaust research remains a global task: "Especially in a situation when some voices want to historicise and relativise these crimes, it is an important signal that an Austrian NGO is donating such a prize."
Nates’s father and uncle were both Holocaust survivors; their names were included on Oskar Schindler’s famous list, which inspired Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning film Schindler’s List.
Earlier this year on 18 March, the accomplished educator, Nates also received the Gratias Agit Award, presented annually by the Czech Republic. The award was presented at a reception at the residence of the Ambassador of the Czech Republic to South Africa, Dr Pavel Řezáč. She is the first South African to receive the award.