International Inaction
"Indifference" and "apathy" are often used to describe the world's reaction to the Holocaust. The real failure, however, is better described as "inaction." Although there were honourable exceptions, the sad truth is that most politicians, diplomats, church leaders, military strategists, industrialists, business and community leaders did little to assist the Jews and other Nazi victims. They did even less to directly attack or disrupt the machinery of mass murder.

There were many levels of inaction. The secret services of Britain, America and the Soviet Union, for example, had accurate accounts of the Holocaust from the very beginning, but chose to bury the details in their top secret vaults. Only a very few insiders had access to the truth in these files. Many politicians and diplomats knew enough to tell the world the truth but most insisted that the "atrocity stories" were exaggerated, which much of the media was all too willing to accept.

The churches collected information from clergy and laity living in the vicinity of the death machine and therefore had a very accurate picture of what was really happening. Action to assist the victims was, however, left to individuals such as Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat in Hungary, and non-government organisations which had little influence.