The French-Bulgarian philosopher Tzvetan Todorov, who died earlier this month, devoted most of his career to studying how people behaved when faced with extremity, focusing particularly on inmates of concentration camps and the Soviet gulag. Reflecting on Todorov’s conclusion that moral life was not completely crushed by such inhuman circumstances, Bruce Edward Walker writes:

Todorov’s research details a king’s ransom of [moral] choices made by prisoners—often refuting those prisoners’ own claims [to the contrary]. Ena Weiss was an Austrian confined at Auschwitz who told another inmate she placed her own needs “first, second, and third. Then nothing. Then myself again—and then all the others.” [In reality, however], Weiss overstated her self-preservation dramatically. . . . Weiss assisted “tens, indeed hundreds of other prisoners.”

Other examples abound to support Todorov’s conclusion. Father Maximilian Kolbe was canonized after he gave his own life in return for the life of a father and husband while imprisoned in Auschwitz. . . .

It’s true that Todorov in his later years made lamentable comments drawing false equivalencies between the activities of Islamic terrorists and Western military actions deployed against them. While unfortunate, considering the breadth of his knowledge concerning the evils of totalitarianism, such statements are only footnotes to Todorov’s greater accomplishments.

One thing is for certain, and that is Communism and fascism weren’t defeated by the scolding of Western politicians. [Communism] collapsed of its own weight, expedited by such voices as . . . Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who bore witness to its crimes and everyday horrors. Perhaps as well it was commonplace displays of the moral qualities of kindness, caring, and recognition of each other’s dignity by the inmates in the gulags and concentration camps that helped doom such lamentable locations of human misery to the dustbin of recent history. Much of Todorov’s body of work makes a . . . compelling argument that morality is a powerful weapon against the enemies of human freedom.

Established in 2012 and maintaining branches in Europe, North America, and Iran, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network claims its goal is merely to show “solidarity” for imprisoned Palestinians. The organization’s leader, however, has admitted to being a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a notorious terrorist group whose most recent accomplishments include murdering a seventeen-year-old girl. As Arsen Ostrovsky and Patricia Teitelbaum point out, Samidoun is just one example of how the European Union allows Iran-backed terrorists to operate in its midst:

The PFLP is a proxy of the Iranian regime, which provides the terror group with money, training, and weapons. Samidoun . . . has a branch in Tehran. It has even held events there, under the pretext of “cultural activity,” to elicit support for operations in Europe. Its leader, Khaled Barakat, is a regular on Iran’s state [channel] PressTV, calling for violence and lauding Iran’s involvement in the region. It is utterly incomprehensible, therefore, that the EU has not yet designated Samidoun a terror group.

According to the Council of the European Union, groups and/or individuals can be added to the EU terror list on the basis of “proposals submitted by member states based on a decision by a competent authority of a member state or a third country.” In this regard, there is already a standing designation by Israel of Samidoun as a terror group and a decision of a German court finding Barakat to be a senior PFLP operative.

Given the irrefutable axis-of-terror between Samidoun, PFLP, and the Iranian regime, the EU has a duty to put Samidoun and senior Samidoun leaders on the EU terror list. It should do this not as some favor to Israel, but because otherwise it continues to turn a blind eye to a group that presents a clear and present security threat to the European Union and EU citizens.