Award presented for the first time under its new name “FAU Rudolf Benario Human Rights Award”.
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) has presented this year’s FAU Human Rights Award to the Venezuelan sociologist and human rights activist Prof. Ligia Bolívar. Bolívar accepted it in person from FAU President Prof. Dr. Joachim Hornegger during the evening of Monday, September 28, 2026 in the Marble Hall in Nuremberg. The award honors Bolívar’s outstanding global contribution to promoting human rights, in particular her commitment to migrants and refugees and her efforts to document human rights violations in Venezuela. At the same time, this year’s ceremony – the third of its kind – is the first to present the award under its new name: In future, it will be named the “FAU Rudolf Benario Human Rights Award”. Dr. Shmuel Hirschmann, a descendant of Rudolf Benario, traveled to the ceremony to mark the change of name.
“The FAU Rudolf Benario Human Rights Award combines remembrance of a murdered doctoral candidate from our University with recognition of people who stand up for dignity, freedom and rights today, often under difficult circumstances,” declared FAU President Prof. Dr. Joachim Hornegger on the occasion of the award ceremony. “The decision to give the name Rudolf Benario to the award serves to remind us that human rights are never merely an abstract idea, but rather a specific obligation on our part. With Professor Ligia Bolívar, we are honoring someone who acts with expert knowledge, courage and a sense of responsibility to stand up for the rights of migrants and refugees and for the documentation of human rights violations in Venezuela. Her work shows how knowledge and courage translate into action.”
In her acceptance speech, award winner Ligia Bólivar once again emphatically referred to the laws that are in force today: “Asylum and freedom of movement are internationally recognized rights. And yet the reactions they trigger today are often criminalization, externalization of borders and the calculated exploitation of the topic during election campaigns. We remain under an obligation to demand that states keep to the agreements that they themselves have signed.”
“By naming the award after Rudolf Benario, we are linking our appreciation of today’s human rights work with memories of all of those who have resisted – and paid for doing so with their lives.”Prof. Dr. Eva Pils
Changing the name of the award to honor Rudolf Benario
With the change of name, FAU is honoring a member of its own academic community who took an early and decisive stance against the National Socialist regime: Dr. Rudolf Benario. Benario was born on September 20, 1908 in Frankfurt am Main and studied social sciences and law from 1927 in Erlangen, Würzburg and Berlin. During his studies, he was an active member of the “Arbeitsgemeinschaft Republikanischer Studenten” (Working Group of Republican Students) and was the chair of the young Socialists branch of the SPD in Fürth; in 1931 he became a member of the KPD (Communist Party in Germany).
On January 28, 1933 – only two days before President Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor – the University of Erlangen awarded Benario his doctoral degree in political science. Only a few weeks later, in the mass arrests triggered by the burning of the Reichstag, Benario was arrested on March 10, 1993. On April 11, he was transferred to the concentration camp Dachau, where he was murdered by the SS together with three other inmates on the following day, April 12, 1933. National Socialist propaganda claimed the men were “shot while attempting to escape”. Benario is therefore one of the first documented victims of the National Socialist machinery of mass murder – and one of the first victims from the Fürth and Erlangen region.
“By naming the award after Rudolf Benario, we are linking our appreciation of today’s human rights work with memories of all of those who have resisted – and paid for doing so with their lives,” said Prof. Dr. Eva Pils, Humboldt Professor, Director of the FAU Research Center for Human Rights and Chair of Human Rights Law at FAU.
Dr. Shmuel Hirschmann, a descendant of Rudolf Benario, traveled to attend the award ceremony in person. In a very personal speech, he remembered Benario and stressed the importance the change of name has, particularly in the current times.
About award winner Ligia Bolívar
Ligia Bolívar is one of the most influential supporters of human rights in Latin America. As a founder of the Venezuelan Program for Education and Action on Human Rights (Provea), she played a leading role in the development of the human rights movement in Venezuela; today, Provea is regarded as one of the leading NGOs in South America.
Bolívar was the director of the Center for Human Rights at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB) in Caracas, where she still works today as a research associate. She was also the regional representative of Amnesty International for Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal. In this function, as well as in her position as a consultant for various organizations, including the Interamerican Institute for Human Rights, she worked for decades to strengthen human rights work in civil society. She also led a project for the involvement of civil society in the context of the justice reform initiative of the Supreme Court in Venezuela.
Due to political persecution, Bolívar is currently living in exile in Columbia. In recent years, she has clearly spoken out against authoritarian tendencies both in the current Maduro government in Venezuela and in Trump’s government in the United States. Her unfailing commitment in the face of precarious conditions and at considerable risk to her own person were a key argument for the jury: Their decision was based on the nominees’ contributions to academic work and activism in the field of human rights, the amount of pressure they are exposed to and their desire to raise awareness of a particularly urgent global human rights situation.
From September 14 until December 12, 2026, Ligia Bolívar is conducting research as a visiting scientist at FAU within the framework of the FAU Cluster of Excellence funded by the DFG “Transforming Human Rights”.
Further information:
Award and award-giving ceremony: https://www.humanrights.fau.de/2026/09/02/fau-rudolf-benario-human-rights-award-feierliche-preisverleihung-an-ligia-bolivar/
News on human rights research at FAU: https://www.fau.de/category/menschenrechte/
Center for Human Rights Erlangen Nürnberg: https://www.humanrights.fau.de/