Human rights are tools which protect everyone from beaches of aspects of their essential humanity. They are all the more important in times of crisis such as in the present day. In this talk I start with the five years in 1946-51 which created the modern human rights movement and show how the lessons understood by the movement's founders are exactly those which we need to understand most today in the age of Covid-19. This lecture was first given to Limmud Together. You can find the slides at www.betterhumanpodcast.com