[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 156 (Monday, November 8, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2301]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             GROUNDBREAKING OF THE AUSCHWITZ JEWISH CENTER

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                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, November 8, 1999

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, today I invite my colleagues to join me in 
commemorating the official ground-breaking for the Auschwitz Jewish 
Center a tribute to the Jews who perished in this century's most 
senseless tragedy. The Center, located in the last remaining synagogue 
in the town of Oswiecim (the Polish name for Auschwitz), will offer 
visitors to the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp an 
opportunity for reflection, education, and understanding of the 
enormous loss inflicted by the Holocaust.
  The groundbreaking for the Auschwitz Jewish Center takes place on the 
eve of the sixty- first anniversary of Kristallnacht (``The Night of 
Broken Glass''), the 1938 Nazi pogrom that foreshadowed the Holocaust 
and marked the beginning of the Nazi effort to exterminate the Jews. 
Ninety-one German and Austrian Jews were murdered during Kristallnacht, 
and 26,000 more were arrested and deported to concentration camps. Nazi 
thugs set fire to 101 synagogues and destroyed almost 7,500 Jewish-
owned businesses. This evening of terror and brutality marked the 
beginning of the end of German Jewry. Kristallnacht, which was 
orchestrated by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, was an 
attempt permanently to wreck the cultural and civic infrastructure of 
the Jewish people in the hope that Jews would never again find comfort 
in Germany.
  Mr. Speaker, the anniversary of Kristallnacht reminds us yet again 
why the establishment of the Auschwitz Jewish Center holds such great 
significance. The Center will offer visitors seminar rooms, a library, 
a memorial wall to victims of the Holocaust, genealogy records, and a 
screening room for viewing testimonials from Holocaust survivors which 
will be made available through an agreement with Steven Spielberg's 
Shoah Foundation. It will allow guests to learn about Oswiecim's rich 
Jewish history, which dates back to medieval times, and it will permit 
them to ponder over the destruction of this community and thousands 
like it across Europe. Most of all, the Center will offer Jews and non-
Jews alike the opportunity to mourn and remember.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in praising the accomplishments of 
the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, Inc., a New York based tax-
exempt organization created in 1995 to support the Center's creation, 
and its founder and president, noted philanthropist Fred Schwartz. Mr. 
Schwartz and his lovely wife, Allyne, visited Auschwitz in 1993 and 
shortly after began the process of creating an institution that would 
help to ``attach human characteristics to the people who perished 
there.'' Fred set up the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation and, aided 
by the devoted efforts of executive director/vice president Daniel 
Eisenstadt and a wealth of other talented individuals, and the Center 
has contributed immeasurably to the memory of the victims of Auschwitz 
and the Holocaust.
  Mr. Speaker, Fred and Allyne Schwartz and all of their associates 
involved in the establishment of the Auschwitz Jewish Center merit the 
appreciation of every Member of the House. As a Holocaust survivor, I 
am grateful to them for paying tribute to the most horrendous legacy of 
the twentieth century. As a grandfather, I am even more indebted to 
them for keeping this memory alive for the twenty-first century and 
beyond.

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