"Or the Jews for the Crucifixion"

I thought it was the Romans who did that.  No matter.....I agree that the sins of the fathers need not be paid for by the sons.  I could rail against the English who let my Irish forebears starve, as well as those in Canada who persecuted them.  My mother was Dutch, and her family suffered greatly during the Nazi occupation.  The perpetrators of that misery profited handsomely through their privation.

But I don't expect formal apologies or hundreds of thousands in compensation.  Somehow, on both the maternal and paternal sides of my family, they managed to rise above the hardship and abuse.

Would it have been easier to drown in a well of self-pity and blame?  Sure.  But their own lives as well as my own would have been much poorer for it.

The best way to address the sins of the past is to ensure equal opportunity for any who care to work for it and fight vigorously against any form of oppression.