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It has been said that "conscience whispers while interest screams aloud." In a world where the clamor of interests often prevails, the Committee seeks to amplify the voice of conscience.

When the President's Commission on the Holocaust recommended in 1979 the creation of a living memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, it observed that no issue "was as perplexing or as urgent as the need to insure that such a totally inhuman assault as the Holocaust – or any partial version thereof – never recurs." To address that need, the President's Commission recommended creation of a Committee on Conscience. The Museum opened in 1993, and shortly thereafter, Leo Melamed, whose family fled Nazism, formally proposed the establishment of the Committee on Conscience to his fellow members of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, which received unanimous approval in 1995. The present Chair of the Committee is Tom Bernstein.

To read Committee on Conscience press releases, please click here.