A cronicler who recites events without distinguishing between major and minor ones acts in accordance with the following truth: Nothing that has ever happened should be regarded as lost for history, To be sure, only a redeemed mankind receives the fullness of its past - which is to say, only for a redeemed mankind has past become citable in all its moments.

The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight.