of the Holocaust, Ozick states, "...everything is known that needs to be known: how it was done, who did it, who helped, where it was done, and when, and why. Especially why: the hatred of a civilization..." (168). The answers to these questions, especially "why" show how hatred and the indifference towards hate can be dangerous for all of civilization. One does not know who might be the next victim of hatred. It could be you, or it could be me. If it is either of us, will we choose courageously and attempt to help, or will we watch hoping it will go away? These are the questions Ozick would like for us to ponder.
             Of the Holocaust, Ozick initially names three categories of participants: the murderers, victims and bystanders. She asks us to take a moment to expand our awareness beyond our present self and envision ourselves in the category of participants. Ozick appreciates the complexity and strangeness of this question and recognizes that "If" is a question usually considered and wrestled with by only scholars or historians; however, she asks us - "the ordinary human article" - because we are ordinary human beings and average members of society (168). It is easy to know how we feel about the victims – pity and painful horror mixes with tear-soaked sadness and dismay about the terrible suffering of men, women and children. As for the murderers, we can each regard them with varying degrees of disgust and a different kind of sadness for the evil that resided in them. Actually hearing stories of this magnitude of evil never prompted me to think about my identity as a human being. It is hard enough to sit with it and ponder over such morbidity. My natural tendency is to get over it and move on with life. Ozick, however, attempts to show us that we are missing one of life's most important lessons about compassion and bravery when we do not resolve to think how we can prevent such cruelty fro...