[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 55 (Thursday, April 25, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4257-S4259]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              COMMEMORATION OF THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to commend to the Senate 
three remarkable public addresses delivered

[[Page S4258]]

last week on the Days of Remembrance, designated by the Congress to the 
memory of the Holocaust victims. Two of these speeches were given at 
New York City's Annual Commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and 
the third graced the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council's National Civic 
Commemoration in the Rotunda of the Capitol Building.
  These addresses by my friend Benjamin Meed, president of the Warsaw 
Ghetto Resistance Organization and Avroham Burg, the dynamic director 
general of the Jewish Agency for Israel, are important statements that 
deserve the attention of all who cherish human freedom and democratic 
values.
  I ask to have these remarks by Mr. Meed and Director General Burg 
printed in the Record.
  The remarks follow:

   An Address by Benjamin Meed, President, Warsaw Ghetto Resistance 
  Organization 53rd Annual Commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

       We are together again--the entire Jewish people, men, 
     women, and children, to commemorate the murder of the Jewish 
     people by the Germans and their collaborators. They made no 
     distinctions among Jewish people at the gates of hell. 
     Together we were all pushed to the gas chambers. For one 
     reason only--we were born as Jews.
       This commemoration, which I have the honor to chair for the 
     35th year, is deeply emotional for me as it is for many of 
     you. For many years, the survivors alone remembered. We kept 
     reliving our nightmares in the hope that the world would pay 
     attention to our past, and now, the world has heard our 
     story.
       People have started to understand that what happened was 
     real. When we testified collectively, the world began to take 
     our tragic experience seriously--and to heed our warning.
       Or perhaps it is because all humanity is frightened that 
     the tragic, unique lesson that we Jews experienced, can 
     happen again--this time on a cosmic scale--to all people. And 
     it is all because survivors kept faith with the final command 
     imparted to us by the Kedoshim! Zachor--Gedenk--Remember!
       We accepted that obligation and took it with us to our 
     adopted homes throughout the world. In Israel or Argentina--
     in Sweden or France--throughout the United States and 
     Canada--survivors remember. How can we forget? How can we 
     allow others to forget? How betrayed and isolated we were by 
     the high and the mighty--and the ordinary people. The so 
     called ordinary people were not so ordinary. Many highly 
     educated were nevertheless motivated to murder us.
       Immediately after the Holocaust they said they did not 
     know. How could they not have known? On the cattle cars to 
     Auschwitz and Treblinka--throughout Poland, Czechoslovakia 
     and Hungary on the way to death--we criss-crossed all of 
     Europe--day after day after day--screaming for help in 
     Yiddish and Polish, Greek and German, Dutch and Flemish, 
     Russian and French. But the world would not listen as we were 
     herded together from the four corners of Nazi Europe to be 
     murdered--only because we were Jews.
       We Jews now speak other languages. And on Yom Hashoah we 
     gather from every part of the world--to remember together! 
     And Jews are united--not by death--but by memory and by a 
     love of Israel. To us survivors, the State of Israel is not 
     only a political entity. It is a homeland--a realized dream--
     a bright beacon of light in a world desperate for hope.
       And yet we are still afraid--but it is a different fear. 
     Those who were fortunate enough not to have experienced the 
     Holocaust do not and cannot understand how we survivors feel 
     when we see how our tragic past is remembered by others. We 
     are deeply hurt when we see the way the Holocaust is 
     portrayed as only dead bodies--piles and piles of corpses and 
     mass graves. We survivors shudder, for in a way we fear that 
     Hitler succeeded because the world is not aware of the 
     vibrant Jewish life that was before the Holocaust--or of the 
     cultural heritage of 1,000 years of Jewish history in Europe. 
     It does not hear the songs of the shtetl, the theme of 
     Warsaw, the Yeshivot of Vilna, the Hasidim of Belz, or the 
     poets of Lodz and Krakow.
       All it recognizes is death. Yet we remember the life that 
     was destroyed--the world that is no longer. The world of 
     Yiddishkeit and Menchlichkeit.
       We are still asking the questions--how did it happen? Who 
     failed? What failed? But these questions should not distract 
     our attention from the real murderers--the Germans and their 
     collaborators--or from the profound failure of world leaders 
     and church leaders. Their silence has yet to be judged by 
     history.
       And we think not only of the past but also of the future. 
     To you--our children assembled here, we would like to entrust 
     our memories--as part of our last will and testament. You are 
     the last generation to be blessed with the memories of the 
     survivors--the living witnesses to the kingdom of night. This 
     is your heritage, which we are transmitting to you. You must 
     know your roots. You must remember that your very birth was 
     testimony of the triumph of hope over despair--of dreams over 
     pain. You are our response to those who tried to destroy us.
       We also want to protect the truth from innocent and well-
     meaning people who speak only of the good--of the rays of 
     hope and goodness--the righteous Gentiles whose memories we 
     cherish with gratitude. But where was the reality? For every 
     righteous person, there were thousands who collaborated or 
     who shared the enemy's desire to murder the Jews or who, at 
     best, stood idly by and did nothing.
       Let us remember the Holocaust as it was. It was painful. It 
     was bitter. It was ugly. It was inhuman. But it was real. Let 
     us not permit it to be diluted or vulgarized. Let us not 
     diminish its meaning by treating every event in human 
     history--every instance of human suffering or discrimination 
     as a Holocaust.
       We survivors know that time is growing short, we are 
     getting older and we need each other more than ever before, 
     and we need you--our children and our fellow Jews to continue 
     our legacy.

  Remarks of Avroham Burg, Director General of the Jewish Agency for 
                                 Israel

       Shalom Moishe, my dead elder brother.
       A year has passed, and once again we are gathered to honor 
     your memory. Each year, we promise you that we will never 
     forget. We will not forget you and all our brothers and 
     sisters who will forever remain the young boys and girls you 
     were on the day of your deaths.
       You really haven't changed. You are still so much like the 
     old, faded picture hanging on the wall at home. It was hand 
     painted with life-like colors.
       In our memories, you are still smiling as if the world 
     wasn't such a hard place to live in. It's as if you really 
     haven't noticed that another year has gone by. The sun is 
     hotter, and the cold is even colder. My legs are weaker, and 
     my eyes are filled with more tears. And strangely, as more 
     time passes, and we grow further apart we grow closer 
     together. Because each year, fewer survivors remain. They 
     leave this world, and we remain here with the heavy burden of 
     memory. And, as we eulogize you, we also eulogize lost 
     childhood and history that--like you--we can never ever bring 
     back.
       Six million brothers died. Sisters, children, parents and 
     their loved ones. How many of you are there really? Another 
     entire State of Israel. Another community the size of the 
     American Jewish community. Another fifteen communities of 
     Latin American Jews? So many boys, girls and grandchildren 
     that will never be born.
       Our mourning will never cease. Never, because you--the 
     fallen--never will have children. There were those who never 
     had children because they were too young, and those who had 
     children whose spirits never ran free, and those who had 
     children who never had the chance to fulfill their dreams.
       As time passes, we miss you more than ever. We miss the 
     children that you never had. So many unborn children. For 
     those of you, the childless generation, we are here for you, 
     standing by your side, here and now.
       And the cycle of our mourning will never be completed. Our 
     continuous grieving is the grieving of a people that is 
     missing so many of its members.
       And we--the living--each year, we bring children into the 
     world. So many of them bear your name, Moishe, to honor the 
     dead, and we hope that they will experience all the things we 
     wanted for you but you never had.
       Our children are continuing in your footsteps, from the 
     point at which your life was cut off.
       They will never know you, and we silently pray:
       That they will carry your name but please God, that they 
     will know a different fate. That they will live, and know 
     goodness and peace. Each year we promise our children the 
     things that our mothers promised us:
       Son, when you are all grown up, there won't be violence in 
     the world. When you grow up, there will be peace in our 
     world. And we also promise our children something that we may 
     not accomplish.
       Will our grandchildren enjoy the redemption on behalf of 
     our dead loved ones?
       I really don't know what to say to you. You who come here 
     every year. You who come here to unite with the memory of 
     those no longer with us. We have come here because of the 
     togetherness, and the awesome atmosphere of condolence. We 
     want to be with you today, in this gathering of mourners. It 
     is here, and in every place that we take our revenge.
       On that painful and horrifying day, at the moment before 
     the flames engulfed you, we cried out--revenge!
       Oh God of Vengeance--Hashen--appear!
       And, as time passed, something deep inside of us cried out 
     to us, and we pray to God, but differently:
       Oh God, full of mercy--Father of Compassion!
       Because Jewish revenge is not taken by shedding blood.
       We do not want to resemble our killers when we take our 
     revenge. Our revenge is different.
       We remember, and never forget. We remember the murderers, 
     and know that we can never forget that in every man there is 
     an evil inclination. We remember the march of the dead, and 
     we march for the living.
       We remember the glorious legacy of communities that were 
     ruthlessly executed.
       And we swear that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren 
     will never, ever forget you, Moishe.

[[Page S4259]]

       The world, it seems, wants us to accept that your souls and 
     the worldly goods you worked for were taken away from us 
     forever. Your souls are protected by God, and your spirit 
     rests in the next world. But we will have your goods 
     returned. Because justice was not fully served on the day of 
     surrender in 1945.
       We have not forgotten the despondency of the final moments. 
     And we have demands from and messages to the once Nazi-
     occupied European countries, and the neutral nations:
       You will not benefit from the deposits or the possessions 
     of those who were murdered. We are all too aware of the 
     ``dormant'' accounts.
       There are no dormant accounts. And there are no dormant 
     memories.
       Because each individual is a messenger, and there is no man 
     who does not have a mission.
       And, it is not our mission because of the individual or for 
     the individual. Rather, this is the mission of the individual 
     on behalf of his people.
       One individual comes to the world to teach, and another to 
     learn. One person comes into the world to cry, and the other 
     to console. One person is born to live, and yet you were born 
     and then died so soon. Was this your mission? You died so 
     that we could live. And we were born to remember.
       Today, we are your messengers, Messengers who must remember 
     to live by your commandments. To have the ultimate Jewish 
     revenge--the revenge of peace, as in the Jewish prayers that 
     we say three times per day:
       Bring upon us peace and goodness and a blessed life, grace 
     and kindness, upon us and the entire House of Israel, amen. 
     Bless us our Father, each of us as one in the glorious light 
     of your powers, because the light of your powers gave us the 
     Torah and the love of kindness, and the love of charity and 
     blessings and mercy and life and peace.
       And it would please you to bless us, and to bless your 
     entire House of Israel at every moment and at every hour and 
     the strength of your peace be upon us. Blessed art thou, our 
     Lord who blesses his people of Israel in peace.
       Amen. May their memories be a blessing.

Welcoming Remarks by Benjamin Meed, Chairman, Days of Remembrance, U.S. 
                       Holocaust Memorial Council

       Members of the Diplomatic Corps, distinguished Members of 
     Congress, Honorable members of the Holocaust Memorial 
     Council, Fellow Survivors, Dear Friends.
       When Congress created the United States Holocaust Memorial 
     Council in 1980, there were only a few Yom Hashoah 
     observances held in communities of Holocaust survivors living 
     in this country. You, the Members of Congress, entrusted us, 
     the members of the Council, with the responsibility of 
     teaching American citizens about the Holocaust. We have 
     complied with your mandate by building the Holocaust Memorial 
     Museum, which most of you have visited, and by leading the 
     nation in annual civic commemorations, known as the Days of 
     Remembrance. I am privileged to tell you that now, during 
     this week of Holocaust Remembrance, more than a million 
     people from all the states of our great Union will come 
     together in Memory. We are joined by Governors, Mayors and 
     community leaders as well as professors, teachers and 
     schoolchildren.
       Earlier today, the entire nation of the State of Israel 
     stopped and stood silent in Remembrance. We are together in 
     dedication to Memory and aspiration for Peace.
       Over the past fifteen years that we have gathered to 
     commemorate in this Rotunda, we have observed an 
     anniversary--the fiftieth year of a milestone event: the 
     Night of Broken Glass, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the 
     encounter between American soldiers and Holocaust survivors.
       This year we confront the anniversary of the aftermath of 
     the Holocaust: what happened as we survivors attempted to 
     rebuild our lives. This was not an easy thing to do. It was 
     years before we could ask a policeman for directions. Why? 
     Because he was wearing a uniform. For a long time, it took 
     great courage just to answer a knock on the front door.
       It is true that we looked to the future in hope, but the 
     shadows of the past remained. And so we dedicated our lives 
     to Remembrance--remembrance of all those for whom the future 
     had been destroyed by the Shoah.
       Rebuilding became a central concern for the world--
     rebuilding a Europe devastated by war; rebuilding the 
     shattered image of humanity in a world of Auschwitz, Belzec 
     and Treblinka. America understood the necessity of 
     encouraging the European nations to work together for 
     economic recovery. Thus the Marshall Plan was implemented, 
     and the groundwork for the Europe of today was laid.
       The Allied leaders also realized that to build a sound 
     future, there had to be an accounting for crimes so great as 
     to be unparalleled in recorded history.
       Nuremberg, the city where Nazi party pageants had been 
     held, the place where the Nuremberg Laws were promulgated and 
     the German legal system became an accomplice to mass murder, 
     was chosen as the site for the first, joint International 
     Military Tribunal.
       In its charter, three forms of crimes were specified. Two 
     of them were ancient, but one was unprecedented. Crimes 
     against the peace and war crimes were familiar terms to all 
     of us, but Crimes Against Humanity was a new category. It 
     described mass murder and extermination, enslavement and 
     deportation based on racial, religious, or political 
     affiliation.
       Through the proceedings of the Nuremberg Trials, we came to 
     know the perpetrators. Documents that the killers had so 
     carefully created were gathered and studied. In the defense 
     testimony of accused doctors, judges and industrial leaders 
     as well as military generals, Einsatzgruppen commanders, and 
     concentration camp commandants, the world learned ``how the 
     crimes were committed.'' We also learned that tens of 
     thousands of ordinary Germans from all walks of life had 
     willingly participated in the annihilation process. 
     Ironically, those on trial pled not guilty to the charges, 
     they did not claim innocence. Rather, they attempted to 
     shift the burden of responsibility to those of higher 
     rank.
       Was justice achieved? Certainly not! For what meaning can 
     justice have in a world of Majdanek, Chelmno and Sobibor? 
     What punishment is appropriate for the crimes?
       Still, the attempt to speak of justice was important. It 
     was a way of setting limits, of saying there are crimes so 
     evil and so enormous that civilization itself is on trial. 
     For such crimes, there must be punishment.
       For many years at hundreds of commemorations around the 
     world, we have pleaded Zachor--Remember. Remember the 
     children of Teresienstadt. Remember the fighters of Warsaw. 
     Remember the poets of Vilna. Remember all of our lost loved 
     ones.
       Today, let us also not forget the killers. Let us not 
     forget their evil and their infamy. Let us not forget them 
     because they express what happens to the power of government 
     and the majesty of legal systems that become detached from 
     moral values and humane goals. The same powers that heal and 
     help can also humiliate and decimate. There is a difference; 
     there must be a difference: and you and I must make sure that 
     we make a difference.
       With these words, here in this great Hall of democracy, let 
     us recommit ourselves to the principles of justice and 
     liberty for all--and to Remembrance--now and forever.
       Thank you.

                          ____________________