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Notes -
Thinking in terms of responsibility seems pointless to me. Ultimately, there are goals and actions that bring us closer to or farther from those goals. Saying "X is guilty, he chose to do something" doesn't get you closer to your goals. This type of thinking does make sense on a societal level, as a way to reduce independent actions that might hurt the tribe but it doesn't make sense for an individual. You punishing someone else can only help you indirectly, in a manipulative way. Like, if you "expose" a pedophile, your social status might increase slightly. But I don't like where this type of thinking leads to, so I don't do it.
So my solution is to simply think about guilt as little as possible and only under the context of "If other people think Y person is guilty, how will they behave?".
In your example, that means:
"The older generation worked under specific circumstances that made them act a certain way, it's too bad if their actions caused harm." and likewise for the younger generation.
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