[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 16 (Thursday, January 26, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E185]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     IN RECOGNITION OF ANITA SEMJEN

                                 ______


                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, January 25, 1995
  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and commend Ms. Anita 
Semjen, director of the Cultural Exchange Foundation, for her 
exceptional efforts in keeping alive the memories of the victims of the 
Holocaust.
  Ms. Semjen is currently the director of the Cultural Exchange 
Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based, non-profit organization promoting 
Hungarian-American cultural exchanges. Her most recent effort involve 
``Victims and Perpetrators,'' an exhibition which is scheduled to be 
shown in Budapest, Hungary on February 26, 1995. Following its 
presentation at the Budapest Jewish Museum, the works will be displayed 
in several major United States cities, eventually entering the 
collection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
  ``Victims and Perpetrators'' presents the works of Ilka Gedo and 
Gyorgy Roman, artists who lived through the Hungarian Holocaust, in 
which some 500,000 Hungarian Jews were taken to German concentration 
camps and murdered. Ilka Gedo's drawings from the Budapest ghettos 
expose painful memories of the past.
  Gyorgy Roman, reputedly Hungary's most emulated artist, has sketched 
scenes from court proceedings of the war criminal trials. Ms. Anita 
Semjen found Roman's sketch work through a combination of determination 
and luck, which has led to its first ever public showing in ``Victims 
and Perpetrators.'' Both artists' works are unique for their 
extraordinary insight coupled with their artistic value and intimacy of 
perception.
  Ms. Semjen demonstrates an admirable understanding of the arts and 
peoples of both the United States and Hungary. At a time when innocent 
peoples still fall victim to religious and ethnic persecution, Ms. 
Semjen's exhibition rekindles our often passive conscience.
  Therefore, today, Mr. Speaker, more than 50 years after the tragedy 
of the Hungarian Holocaust, I invite my colleagues to join me in 
honoring the diligent efforts of Anita Semjen in reminding us of the 
grievous memories of the past and of the lessons history teaches us in 
the interminable fight against cruelty and oppression.


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