Cambridge Journals Online

Still Standing By: Why America and the International Community Fail to Prevent Genocide and Mass Killing

On April 22, 1993, President Bill Clinton addressed a crowd of 10,000 people gathered for the dedication of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). He reminded the audience that “this museum is not for the dead alone…. [I]t is perhaps most of all for those of us who were not there at all: to learn the lessons, to deepen our memories and our humanity, and to transmit these lessons from generation to generation.” One of the principal lessons of the Holocaust, he suggested, was that the United States and other countries should have done more to prevent it or to rescue more victims from the Nazi killing machine: Even as our fragmentary awareness of crimes grew into indisputable facts, far too little was done. Before the war even started, doors to liberty were shut. And even after the United States and the Allies attacked Germany, rail lines to the camps within miles of militarily significant targets were left undisturbed…. The evil represented in this museum is incontestable. But as we are its witness, so must we remain its adversary in the world in which we live, so we must stop the fabricators of history and the bullies as well. Left unchallenged, they would still prey upon the powerless; and we must not permit that to happen again. ¹

Footnotes

¹ Bureau of Public Affairs 1993, 322.