Caring and Responsibility

Abstract

Wwhen world War II ended and in the two decades following liberation, very little was written and less was said about the Holocaust. The slaughter of six million Jews was seldom mentioned in our schools, universities, synagogues or churches. Nor was it included in our textbooks or in the classroom curriculum. The stunning realization of the evil of which the perpetrators were capable and the trauma of the victims combined with the shame of the bystanders to erect a wall of silence around the tragic event of the Shoah. Even the word ‘Holocaust’ (capitalized) did not come into use until the 1960s.¹

Plenary Address, Oxford, 20 July 2000