The Kotzker was the kind of man who would say  today that Hiroshima and Nagasaki continue to agonize. After so many years ? people would wonder. Is not the Holocaust, too, a matter of the past ? Is it not time to let it slip into oblivion ? Why let memories that conjure up atrocities affect our moral imperatives? What good will come out of it ?

A.J. Heschel, A Passion for Truth , Jewish Lights Publishing, p. 312