Final answer:
Prejudices against Holocaust victims variously led people to feel justified, indifferent, or regretful about their treatment. Righteous individuals who embraced altruism in the face of these horrors are commemorated at Yad Vashem. The Holocaust's systemic atrocities compelled a post-war reckoning with Western civilization's conflicted morality.
Step-by-step explanation:
Peoples' prejudices against the victims of the Holocaust had a profound impact on their responses to the atrocities committed. Such biases influenced whether they felt justified in their actions, indifferent to the suffering, or later reflected with regret about their biases. However, it's important to recognize that there were also individuals who chose to act righteously, resisting hatred and embracing altruism. The Yad Vashem in Israel commemorates these righteous people as a testament to the courage, kindness, and decency that existed amid darkness.
During and after World War II, the Allied discovery of concentration camps and the full extent of the systematic murder of millions of civilians forced the world to confront these crimes. The discovery of the Holocaust and other wartime atrocities prompted reflection and often horror, as they brought to light the consequences of unchecked racism, prejudice, and bystander apathy.
The Holocaust began with mainstream stereotypes and the gradual elimination of individual rights, fueling fear and hatred that eventually led to the murder of over 6 million Jews. The world had to reckon with the fact that such an atrocity occurred at the hands of a so-called civilized nation, which led to a permanent questioning of the very notion of Western civilization's moral superiority.