Historical Responsibility Quotes

If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.

The Almighty indeed sent the potato blight, but the English created the famine.

I have tried to keep memory alive... I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.

Germany remains among the few countries in Europe to acknowledge, officially and nationally, its responsibility for the crimes it led against our people.

It's all well and good to say that Germans were all responsible for the concentration camps, but I don't think they were. I think that was the work of a small group of fiends.

In my view the European culture carries a very heavy responsibility for the creation of Israel... it is a product of both British and Stalin's anti- Semitism, but the British never faced their own complicity in its construction.

Those who refuse to reform may not make mistakes, but they will be blamed for not assuming their historical responsibility.

Germany's historical responsibility will not expire. We want to live up to it - and you should judge us on it.

In Germany, they were very interested in talking about their past. I respect that, and I think they've done quite well. It's become a kind of obsession, as it bloody well should, when compared, for example, to France, which hasn't done anything. France has done no work about their part in transporting eighty thousand people to their deaths. They are still the guy in the leather jacket with the onion, who's a part of La Résistance. In fact, they collaborated, not resisted.

My likely historical significance is a terrible burden. ~ Calvin

The German people of today bear no guilt. Why are the German people not permitted the right to defend themselves? Why are the crimes of one group emphasized so greatly, instead of highlighting the great German cultural heritage? Why should the Germans not have the right to express their opinion freely?

A thousand years will pass and still this guilt of Germany will not have been erased.

I can say that we are very clear in our mind about the responsibility of the national soldiers for the break with civilisation that was the Shoah. We are firmly convinced that this is something that will have to be handed over to generations to come... so we don't see any reason to change our view of history.

I like places that have history in the sense of - you feel responsible to it.

Armenians, as a people that have survived the Genocide, have a moral duty towards mankind and history in the prevention of genocides. We have done and will continue to do our best to support the persistent implementation of the Genocide Convention. Genocide cannot concern only one people, because it is a crime against humanity.

For the dead and the living, we must bear witness. Not only are we responsible for the memories of the dead, we are responsible for what we do with those memories

We view the protection of Jewish life as a mission. We have a historical responsibility, and this is our duty as a republic.

For those things which were done either by our fathers or ancestors, and in which we ourselves had no share, I can scarcely call our own.

I'm sorry to say this, but Putin is spreading lies. He is doing this with the goal of removing Stalin's Russia responsibility for starting the war jointly with Nazi Germany. I assumed he is ashamed of that.

We Germans have a special responsibility to be alert, sensitive, and aware of what we did during the Nazi era and about lasting damage caused in other countries. I've got tremendous sympathy for that.

We are ourselves history and share the responsibility for world history and our position in it. But we gravely lack awareness of this responsibility.

Germany is a nation that created an enormous amount of suffering on the planet. The German people also themselves have suffered, because it always goes together.

I don't think that France is responsible for the Vel d'Hiv.

We all know that history cannot be undone. But let me assure you that we Austrians know that, because of our history, we have a great responsibility.

Our historical responsibility does not end at the Austrian or European border.