Jacobo Timerman. in describing the veil of terror that has fallen over the Argentine. explained what silence means in the face of oppression: "What there was. from the start. was the great silence. which appears in every civilized country that passively accepts the inevitability of violence and fearthat silence which can transform any nation into an accomplice. that silence which existed in Germany under Hitler and in the Soviet Union under Stalin." He goes on to say. "The Holocaust will be understood not so much through the number of its victims as through the magnitude of the silence in which it existed. And what obsesses me most is the repetition of that silence." I am thankful that in recent years our nation chose not to remain silent. We led the world in a program to provide a haven for the Boat People and other refugees. and we accepted a quarterofamillion of them on our own shores. This is in marked contrast to the tragic apathy and indifference of the world in 1938 at the Evian Conference when Jewish refugees from Nazism were almost universally denied admission. This silence did not help the German people. but led to a tragedy of unbelievable proportions for them and to death and suffering for millions of others. In recent months the news media has carried reports that the United States government is pulling back from socalled "intervention" in matters of human rights. both in dealing with friendly governments as well as with opponents of democracy throughout the world.
Keywords matched
refugees