His is one of 21 stories of ''rescuers'' from genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia and Germany in an exhibition curated by Kahn that opens at Melbourne's Jewish Holocaust Centre tomorrow. It will be accompanied by a month-long program of lectures. What makes ordinary people heroes? Terrible events, for a start. So what can ordinary Australians living relatively uneventful lives learn from such an exhibition? ''This is really about how you go from being a bystander to an upstander,'' says Kahn. ''The examples are extreme, but everyone has it in them to go and step in. You can bring it down to bullying or doing an injustice. ''I don't say risk your life to stop a fight, but there are things to do and say, 'This isn't right'. Studies say if one person says stop, others will follow. So don't just stand there.'' There are examples in every society, Kahn insists. ''If the police are beating up someone in the subway, you can just shout. I want everyone to know they have an option besides just standing there. Rescuer is a tough word, so if we are talking about you and me I prefer upstander.''

Kahn worked as a photo editor for publications such as Time, The New Yorker, The New York Times and Rolling Stone until she founded Proof: Media for Social Justice in 2006. Now she works on global projects with the likes of Amnesty International and Human Rights First. ''Using photos is a powerful means for social change,'' she says. She has taken the exhibition in some form to all three sites of modern genocide from which the stories are drawn. It was tricky in Rwanda, she says, because people don't like to hear about the good Hutu, just as some don't like to hear about the good German who saved Jews or the good Serb who saved Muslims. ''There were people in the Rwandan government who didn't want it to be shown because the words Hutu and Tutsi are still not meant to be used - we are supposed to talk about Rwandans.'' In Bosnia, where the old hatreds remain fresh, it was also challenging, ''but there were Muslims standing next to Serbs looking at the exhibit; it did very well'', Kahn says. In Cambodia, perhaps because the events are more distant, ''they really liked it. We did a series of workshops with students and they asked could they be trained so they could take it to their villages. In Cambodia it's a simple exhibition; banners that can be put on timber poles.''

Kahn spent two years in Rwanda and interviewed more than 60 people, who risked their lives to talk to her, she says. ''So not only did they risk their lives to save people, but also to tell their stories. All these rescuers were basically ordinary people. ''I do question, what would I do? You don't know until it happens. It's about critical thinking and group behaviour, and not necessarily going where the rest of the group or the government goes.'' The Rescuers opens tomorrow and runs until August 22 at the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Elsternwick. Barney Zwartz is religion editor.