[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 59 (Wednesday, April 28, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4400-S4401]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    TRIBUTE TO THE AMERICAN GATHERING OF JEWISH HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS

 Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise to have printed in the 
Record, the remarks made by Benjamin Meed, President of the Warsaw 
Ghetto Resistance Organization, on the 56th anniversary of the Warsaw 
Ghetto Uprising. Mr. Meed made these remarks to the Congregation Emanu-
El in New York City.
  The material follows:

                        Remarks of Benjamin Meed

       Governor Pataki, Senator Schumer, Mayor Giuliani, 
     Comptroller Hevesi, Members of the U.S. Congress, Ambassador 
     Sisso of Israel and Members of the Israeli Consulate, State 
     and City Officials, Members of the New York Legislature, Boro 
     President, Distinguished Guests, fellow survivors, and dear 
     friends.
       Today, Jews gather to pay tribute to the memory of our Six 
     Million brothers and sisters murdered only because they were 
     Jewish; We gather to honor the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto; 
     to grieve; and to continue asking the questions: Why did it 
     happen? How could the civilized world allow it to happen? Why 
     were we so abandoned? Six million times, why?
       This year's national Days of Remembrance theme is dedicated 
     to the voyage of the SS St. Louis. It is a story of refuge 
     denied; it is a tale of international abandonment and 
     betrayal. Why were they refused entry into this country? How 
     can we ever understand why this was allowed to happen? Today, 
     it is inconceivable to us just how that ship in those days 
     was turned away.
       Today 54 years ago the American soldiers came across Nazi 
     Germany slave labor camps and liberated Buchenwald and saved 
     many of us who are here present today. Our gratitude will 
     remain with us forever. We will always remain grateful to 
     these soldiers for their kindness and generosity, and we will 
     always remember those young soldiers who sacrificed their 
     lives to bring us liberty.
       Today, wherever Jews live--from Antwerp to Melbourne, from 
     Jerusalem to Buenos Aires, from New York to Budapest--we come 
     together to remember to say Kadish collectively.
       Remembering the Holocaust is now a part of the Jewish 
     calendar. We are together in our dedication to Memory and our 
     aspiration for peace and brotherhood. Yom Hashoah, the Days 
     of Remembrance, time to collectively bear witness as a 
     community.
       And what lessons did we derive from these horrible 
     experiences? The most important lesson is obvious--it can 
     happen again the impossible is possible again. Ethnic 
     cleansing, genocide, is happening as I speak. It can happen 
     to any one or any group of people. The slaughter in Kosovo 
     and in other places must be brought to an end.
       Should there be another Holocaust, it may be on a cosmic 
     scale. How can we prevent it? All of us must remain 
     vigilant--always aware, always on guard against those who are 
     determined to destroy innocent human life for no other reason 
     than birthright.

[[Page S4401]]

       It is vital that we remember, it is our commitment to those 
     who perished, and to each other; a commitment taken up by 
     your children and, hopefully, by the generation to come. What 
     we remember is gruesome and painful. But remember we must. 
     Over the years, we have tried to make certain that what 
     happened to us was communicated and continues to be told, and 
     retold, until it becomes an inseparable part of the world's 
     conscience.
       And yet, some fifty years after the Holocaust, we continue 
     to be repulsed by revelations about the enormity of the 
     crimes against our people. And we are shocked to learn of the 
     behavior of those who could have helped us, or at least, not 
     hurt us, but who, instead, actually helped those whose goal 
     was to wipe us out. Sadly, many of those who claimed they 
     were neutral were actually involved with the German Nazis. 
     They were anything but not neutral.
       The world has now learned that the Holocaust was not only 
     the greatest murder of humanity, the greatest crime against 
     humanity, but also the greatest robbery in the history of 
     mankind. Driven from our homes, stripped of family 
     heirlooms--indeed of all our possessions--the German Nazis 
     and their collaborators took anything that was or could be of 
     value for recycling. They stole from the living and even 
     defiled the Jewish dead, tearing out gold fillings and 
     cutting off fingers to recover wedding bands from our loved 
     ones who they had murdered.
       But the German Nazis did not--could not--do it alone. The 
     same people who now offer reasonable sounding justifications 
     for their conduct during the Holocaust were, in those darkest 
     of times, more than eager to profit from the German war 
     against the Jews.
       None of the so-called ``neutral'' nations has fully assumed 
     responsibility for its conduct during the Holocaust. The 
     bankers, brokers, and business people who helped Nazi Germany 
     now offer some money to survivors, but they say little about 
     their collaboration. They utter not a word about how they 
     sent fleeing Jews back to the German Nazis' machinery of 
     destruction, nor about how they supported the Nazis in other 
     ways--no admission of guilt; no regret; no expression of 
     moral responsibility.
       We must guard against dangerous, unintended consequences 
     arising from all that is going on now. Hopefully, family 
     properties and other valuables will be returned to their 
     rightful owners. But the blinding glitter of gold--the 
     unrealistic expectations created by all the international 
     publicity--has diverted attention from the evil which was the 
     Holocaust.
       For five decades, we survivors vowed that what happened to 
     our loved ones would be remembered and that our experiences 
     would serve as a warning to future generations. We must 
     continue to make sure that the images of gold bars wrapped in 
     yellow Stars of David do not overshadow the impressions of a 
     mother protecting her daughter with her coat, upon which a 
     Star of David is sewn, or of a young boy desperately 
     clutching his father's hand at Auschwitz/Birkenau before 
     entering the gas chambers.
       The search for lost and stolen Jewish-owned assets has 
     generated enormous publicity and excitement, but it also has 
     created serious concerns. Gold, bank accounts, insurance 
     policies and other assets have become the focal point of the 
     Holocaust. That somehow minimizes Germany's murderous role.
       Great care must be taken to find a balance. The various 
     investigations must continue to uncover the hidden or little 
     publicized truths about the so-called neutral countries that 
     collaborated, and to recover what rightfully belongs to the 
     victims, survivors and their families.
       The focus should never be shifted from the moral and 
     financial responsibility of Germany for the slaughter of our 
     people--acts for which there is no statute of limitations, 
     acts for which Germany remains eternally responsible. Our 
     books should not and cannot be closed.
       Let us Remember.

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