[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 18 (Tuesday, February 2, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H291-H293]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PERMITTING USE OF CAPITOL ROTUNDA FOR CEREMONY COMMEMORATING DAYS OF 
                  REMEMBRANCE FOR VICTIMS OF HOLOCAUST

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee 
on House Administration be discharged from further consideration of the 
concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 19) permitting the use of the 
rotunda of the Capitol for a ceremony as part of the commemoration of 
the days of remembrance of victims of the Holocaust, and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the concurrent resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas)?
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I yield to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas).
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, this concurrent resolution is one that is 
presented annually, and, up until today, at least for a decade, and I 
believe this resolution has been requested for two decades, at least 
for a decade, it was sponsored by the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. 
Yates.
  Sid Yates is no longer with us, so it is my privilege to offer this 
resolution with the ranking Member of the Committee on House 
Administration, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the gentleman 
from Connecticut (Mr. Gejdenson), the gentleman from Ohio, (Chairman 
Regula), the gentleman from New York (Chairman Gilman), the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette), and the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Lantos).
  Mr. Speaker, this year's celebration is one that strikes a theme 
directly remembering the period just prior to the United States 
entering World War II and the tumultuous nature of international 
relations at the time. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council is entrusted 
with sponsoring appropriate observances of the days of remembrance, and 
the U.S. Capitol rotunda ceremony is part of that effort.
  The theme of the 1999 commemoration is the 60th anniversary of the 
voyage of the S.S. St. Louis. In 1939, if you will all recall, Hitler's 
invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, is usually marked as the 
actual beginning of the Second World War, the St. Louis sailed. It had 
as its passengers 936 Jewish refugees. It left Europe and moved toward 
the United States, where it was refused entry, and it was refused entry 
in Cuba. The refugees then returned to Western Europe.
  Then, of course, we know that following the invasion of Poland, 
Hitler and the German forces moved south, invading the Netherlands, 
Belgium and then France. These individuals, who were simply looking for 
freedom, found themselves refugees under the National Socialist rule 
and subject to the Holocaust.
  The Survivors Registry is currently attempting to document the fate 
of the 936 passengers of the St. Louis. Until we are able to document 
the actual fate of these individuals, it is entirely appropriate on the 
60th anniversary of these people, simply looking for freedom and being 
rejected by the country that calls itself the Beacon of Freedom, to 
remember the Holocaust in the way that I think strengthens this 
Nation's commitment to democracy and human rights.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, continuing my reservation, I am pleased to 
yield to my good friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), the 
chairman of the Committee on International Relations.

                              {time}  1500

  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want 
to commend the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) for bringing this 
measure to the floor at this time.
  The commemoration of the Holocaust is so important, and the fact that 
we do it here in the Capitol building, in the Rotunda, is an extremely 
important reminder to the entire world of the importance that we place 
on the Holocaust.
  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to support the House Concurrent 
Resolution, H. Con. Res. 19, authorizing the

[[Page H292]]

use of the Capitol Rotunda for a ceremony commemorating the victims of 
the Holocaust. That important ceremony is scheduled to take place in 
the Capitol on April 13, 1999, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  The passage of this resolution and the subsequent Ceremony of the 
Days of Remembrance will provide the centerpiece of similar Holocaust 
remembrance ceremonies that take place throughout our Nation. This day 
of remembrance will be a day of speeches, reading and musical 
presentation, and will provide the American people and those throughout 
the world an important day to study and to remember those who suffered 
and those who survived.
  Mr. Speaker, it is important that we keep the memory of the Holocaust 
alive as part of our living history. As Americans, we can be proud of 
our efforts to liberate those who suffered and survived in the 
oppressive Nazi concentration camps. Let us never forget the harm that 
prejudice, oppression and hatred can cause.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, further reserving the right to object, I 
yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter).
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me 
this time.
  I rise in strong support of the resolution. Last April I was honored 
to participate in the National Civic Commemoration of the Days of 
Remembrance in the Rotunda. If my colleagues have not experienced this 
moving ceremony, I strongly encourage them to attend.
  During last year's commemoration, I stood with Holocaust survivors in 
a Capitol Rotunda that was filled with the saddest of memories from 
inspirational lives, lives like that of my constituent, Mr. Alec Mutz. 
I was privileged to light a memorial candle with Mr. Mutz, who survived 
three ghettos and five concentration camps.
  During this commemoration, the prayers of remembrance and the voices 
of children reading diaries from those dark days hung in the air of the 
Rotunda. And as the United States Army carried the flags of the 
regiments, the spirit of the Allied forces that had liberated those 
concentration camps, my heart was so heavy and my spirit so haunted I 
could hardly breath. It is an experience that will never leave me.
  I urge my colleagues to overwhelmingly support this resolution. It is 
a part of the vow that we have taken to never forget the Holocaust, 
lest history repeat itself. Mr. Speaker, this message must resonate 
throughout the ages. Our children and our children's children must 
learn of the Holocaust to ensure that it will never happen again.
  In that vein, I would also like to commend to my colleagues the 
Justice for Holocaust Survivors Act that I reintroduced earlier this 
year. H.R. 271 would allow an estimated 60,000 Holocaust survivors to 
sue the German Government in United States Federal courts for equitable 
compensation. I know that many House Members have been frustrated in 
their efforts to help Holocaust survivors persuade the German 
Government to provide some measure of reparation. But, unfortunately, 
too often they have met our efforts with bureaucratic semantics and 
stonewalling.
  H.R. 271 would give Holocaust survivors a last chance for justice. 
Since I introduced the bill in the last Congress, I have heard from 
hundreds of survivors, all denied a chance to have Germany simply 
acknowledge the truth about the savage and inhuman treatment to which 
they were subjected. Their loss, pain and suffering was and is real. 
They deserve compensation for the horrors that they have suffered: 
physical torture, mental abuse, loss of family, destruction of culture.
  Mr. Speaker, as we act to remember the Holocaust with the 
Commemoration of the Days of Remembrance, let us also act to give these 
courageous survivors the last beacon of hope for just resolution of the 
wrongs that they have suffered. I urge my colleagues to support this 
resolution and to cosponsor H.R. 271, the Justice for Holocaust 
Survivors Act.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments, and 
I thank her also for her leadership in so many different efforts 
directed at ensuring that human rights are observed, not just in the 
United States but around the world.
  Mr. Speaker, continuing under my reservation, I am pleased to join 
with the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) in support of this 
concurrent resolution, which provides for the annual remembrance for 
victims of the Holocaust in the Rotunda of the Capitol, on Tuesday, 
April 13, 1999.
  I want to join with the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) in 
recognizing that this resolution was for many years introduced by one 
of our finest Members, Sidney Yates from Illinois. Sidney Yates retired 
last year, and so the chairman of our committee, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Thomas) and I, along with some of our colleagues, are 
introducing it. But he stood as a giant on behalf of those who would 
not let this generation or generations yet to come forget the 
Holocaust.
  There is no occasion more important for the international community 
and for humanity than to remember the tragedy that occurred in the 
1930s and 1940s, the massive loss of life and the tragic reality of 
man's inhumanity to man. It is appropriate, Mr. Speaker, that we use 
the Rotunda, the scene of so many historic events, to draw attention 
again to one of the great tragedies in human history, and to remind 
ourselves that such events must never, never, never again be permitted 
to occur.
  We perhaps delude ourselves that in this great country this could not 
happen. I like to believe and do believe that is true, but we know just 
a short time ago in Texas we had an African-American dragged from the 
back of a truck and brutally murdered. That was because he was an 
African-American. We know too that in the State of Wyoming we had a 
young man, I think he was 19 years of age, perhaps a little older, lose 
his life because of his sexual orientation. We see today a slaughter in 
Kosovo, men, women and children shot at close range in the face, 
unarmed.
  What Days of Remembrance seeks to do is to make sure that we remember 
man's inhumanity to man and be vigilant to its recurrence. In this 
country we are fortunate to have a system that intervenes and acts and 
imposes the law. But, unfortunately, there are too many nations where 
might makes right, as it did in Nazi Germany.
  The ceremony on April 13 will be part of the annual Days of 
Remembrance sponsored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 
and is intended to encourage citizens to reflect on the Holocaust, to 
remember its victims, and to strengthen our sense of democracy and 
human rights.
  We talked just a little earlier in this session about Dante Fascell 
and his chairmanship on the Commission on Security and Cooperation in 
Europe. Basket three of that document says specifically that there are 
certain international principles which apply to every Nation in dealing 
with its own citizens, and that those standards of the international 
community must be observed if a Nation is expected to be a full, 
participating, respected member of the international community.
  Other events remembering the Holocaust will be occurring throughout 
the country. Each year the ceremony has a theme geared to specific 
events which occurred during the Holocaust. The gentleman from 
California (Mr. Thomas) referred to the sailing of the St. Louis on May 
13, 1939, 60 years ago.
  Just as so many refugees came from Europe and other parts of the 
world, they came to the United States. They came to a nation that has a 
Statue of Liberty that says, ``Give me your tired, your poor, your 
huddled masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuse of your teeming 
shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed to me, I lift my lamp 
beside the golden door.''
  Mr. Speaker, the lamp may have been lifted, but the door was closed. 
That was a tragedy, not only for the 900 plus souls that sailed on the 
St. Louis, but as well for a Nation that perceived itself as a refuge 
from tyranny and despotism. They went, as the Chairman said, then to 
Cuba, and again, the door was closed. Both the United States and Cuba 
refused the ship entry.
  It was, therefore, forced to return to Europe whence it came, where 
the passengers were dispersed, having no place to go, through several 
countries. And the tragedy is that a portion of those 936 souls were 
lost in the Holocaust,

[[Page H293]]

murdered because they were Jews, not because of any action they had 
taken, not because of any crime they had committed, but simply because 
of their religion and their national origin. An effort is being made to 
document the fate of these passengers through the use of worldwide 
archival materials, information provided by Jewish communities and 
other sources.
  Mr. Speaker, Members of the Congress realize the importance of 
remembering the victims of the Holocaust and encouraging continuing 
public reflections on the evils which can occur and tragically are 
occurring in our world today.
  Mr. Speaker, there are 435 of us in this House elected by our 
neighbors to represent them. Eleven million people by some counts, and 
far greater by others, including 6 million Jews, lost their lives 
before the Allies achieved victory and put an end to the Nazi death 
camps. And while the remembrance commemorates historical events, the 
issues raised by the Holocaust remain fresh in our memories as we 
survey the scene in several parts of the world, even today.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank and congratulate the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Thomas) for introducing this on the first day of our 
session. His leadership on this issue was important, and I know his 
commitment is as real as any in this body, because this is such an 
important resolution to pass.
  Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Burr of North Carolina). Is there 
objection to the request of the gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  The Clerk read the concurrent resolution, as follows:

                            H. Con. Res. 19

       Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 
     concurring), That the rotunda of the Capitol is authorized to 
     be used from 8 o'clock ante meridian until 3 o'clock post 
     meridian on April 13, 1999, for a ceremony as part of the 
     commemoration of the days of remembrance of victims of the 
     Holocaust. Physical preparations for the ceremony shall be 
     carried out in accordance with such conditions as the 
     Architect of the Capitol may prescribe.
  The concurrent resolution was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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