Award Presented for the First Time Under Its New Name, the “FAU Rudolf Benario Human Rights Award”
The Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) has awarded this year’s FAU Human Rights Award to Venezuelan sociologist and human rights activist Prof. Ligia Bolívar. Bolívar personally accepted the award on the evening of Monday, September 28, 2026, in Nuremberg’s Marmorsaal from FAU President Prof. Dr. Joachim Hornegger. The award honors Bolívar’s outstanding global contributions to the promotion of human rights, particularly her commitment to migrants and refugees as well as her efforts to document human rights violations in Venezuela. At the same time, this year’s ceremony—the third of its kind—marks the renaming of the award: Going forward, it will be known as the “FAU Rudolf Benario Human Rights Award.” Dr. Shmuel Hirschmann, a descendant of Rudolf Benario, traveled to the event for the renaming ceremony.
Watch the video recording of the award ceremony on our YouTube-channel.
“The FAU Rudolf Benario Human Rights Award combines the memory of a murdered doctoral student at our university with the recognition of people who, often under difficult conditions, stand up for dignity, freedom, and rights today,” explained FAU President Prof. Dr. Joachim Hornegger at the award ceremony. “The fact that the award bears Rudolf Benarios’s name starting this year reminds us that human rights are never just an abstract idea, but a concrete obligation. In honoring Professor Ligia Bolívar, we are recognizing a leader who, with expertise, courage, and a sense of responsibility, advocates for the rights of migrants and refugees and works to document human rights violations in Venezuela. Her work demonstrates how knowledge and courage translate into action.”
In her acceptance speech, award recipient Ligia Bolívar once again emphatically highlighted existing law: “Asylum and freedom of movement are internationally recognized rights—yet the current responses to them often involve criminalization, the externalization of borders, and the calculated exploitation of the issue in election campaigns. It remains our duty to demand that states adhere to the treaties they themselves have signed.”
„By naming the award after Rudolf Benario, we are linking our appreciation of today’s human rights work with remembrance of those who resisted—and paid with their lives for doing so.“Prof. Dr. Eva Pils
Renaming the Award in Honor of 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 remembrance of those who have resisted—and paid with their lives for doing so,” said Prof. Dr. Eva Pils, Humboldt Professor, board member of the FAU Profile 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 Recipient 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/
FAU Profile Center for Human Rights Erlangen Nürnberg: https://www.humanrights.fau.de/