The Museum's work on genocide and related crimes against humanity is guided by the Committee on Conscience, a standing committee of the Museum’s Council.
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, a committee of the Museum’s Council.
The Museum opened in 1993, and shortly thereafter, Leo Melamed, whose family fled Nazism, formally proposed the establishment of the Committee on Conscience as a standing committee to his fellow members of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. His proposal received unanimous approval in 1995. The current Chair of the Committee is Michael Chertoff.
The Committee on Conscience mandate is to alert the national conscience, influence policy makers, and stimulate worldwide action to confront and work to halt acts of genocide or related crimes against humanity. According to the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide is defined as the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.
