[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 68 (Tuesday, June 6, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E898-E899]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    REMARKS OF SWEDISH PRIME MINISTER GORAN PERSSON AT THE DAYS OF 
                       REMEMBRANCE COMMEMORATION

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 6, 2000

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, May 4, Members of Congress 
joined with representatives of the diplomatic corps, executive and 
judicial branch officials and hundreds of Holocaust survivors and their 
families to commemorate the Days of Remembrance in the Great Rotunda of 
the United States Capitol. The theme of this year's commemoration was 
``The Holocaust and the New Century: The Imperative to Remember.''
  After more than half a century, Mr. Speaker, we must still 
commemorate the horrors of the Holocaust in order to honor the memory 
of those victims of Hitler's twisted tyranny. At the same time, we must 
mark this catastrophe because mankind still has not learned the lessons 
of this horror, as evidenced most recently by the mass killings in 
Kosovo.
  Mr. Speaker, the keynote speaker at this impressive event was His 
Excellency Goran Persson, Prime Minister of Sweden. The selection of 
Prime Minister Persson was particularly appropriate since he has led 
Sweden in its commitment to furthering Holocaust education and 
remembrance, both in Sweden and internationally. Under his leadership, 
Sweden hosted the 44-nation International Forum on the Holocaust in 
Stockholm last January. In his address at the closing session of the 
Stockholm Forum the Prime Minister issued a very appropriate call to 
remembrance: ``It is the end of the silence, and the beginning of a new 
millennium . . . Although we have left the century in which the 
Holocaust occurred, we must continue to study it in all its dimensions, 
at all times. We must add more pieces to the puzzle, foster greater 
awareness of the causes, acquire more knowledge about the 
consequences.''
  Mr. Speaker, Prime Minister Persson has had a distinguished political 
career in Sweden. Since 1996, he has served as Prime Minister and 
Chairman of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. He previously served 
as Minister of Finance, Minister at the Ministry of Education, a Member 
of the Riksdag (Parliament), and a local government official in 
Katrineholm. He is married to Annika Persson, and he has two daughters.
  Prime Minister Persson's remarks at this year's Day of Remembrance 
ceremony were moving and particularly meaningful. I ask that Prime 
Minister Persson's remarks be placed in the Record, and I urge my 
colleagues to give them thoughtful consideration.

Day of Remembrance Observance, Capitol Rotunda, Washington, May 4, 2000

       Mr. Greenberg, Mr. Meed, Excellencies of the Diplomatic 
     Corps, Honourable Members of the U.S. Congress, Holocaust 
     Survivors. Dear Friends: Today, we meet in the Capitol 
     Roumda, in the very heart of the American democracy.
       Here we meet to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust 
     and to honour survivors and liberators.
       We meet to demonstrate our strong commitment to make the 
     lessons of the past a living exhortation for the future.

[[Page E899]]

       Let me begin by telling you a story handed down to 
     posterity by a teacher in the ghetto of Lodz.
       A little boy, whose entire family had been deported, was 
     dawdling in the street, talking loudly to himself. In one 
     fist he clutched a handful of small stones.
       First he dropped three small stones. They hit the ground 
     with a faint sound, then two more, followed by another three. 
     Then the little boy quickly closed his fist. In his lively 
     eyes the shiny black pupils stopped racing for a moment. He 
     said:
       ``Nine brothers like these stones we were once, all close 
     together. Then came the first deportation and three of the 
     brothers didn't return, two were shot at the barbed wire 
     fence and three died of hunger. Can you guess how many 
     brother-stones are still left in my hand?''
       As all children do, this boy played games to help him 
     understand the world around him. Only his world was a world 
     of incomprehensible evil. Only his was the world of the 
     Holocaust.
       Ladies and Gentlemen, the Holocaust was no accident of 
     history. The systematic murder of the Jews did not happen by 
     chance. Nor did the genocide of the Roma, the mass murder of 
     disabled persons or the persecution and murder of 
     homosexuals, dissidents and Jehovah's Witnesses.
       It occurred because people willed it, planned it and 
     carried it through. It occurred because people made choices 
     which allowed it to happen. It occurred, not least, because 
     people remained silent. As the 21st century dawns we must ask 
     ourselves: Can we be sure that the societies we build on 
     today do not house the very same mechanisms that made the 
     Holocaust possible?
       Dear friends, the answer is no. We cannot be sure. We have 
     good reason to be fearful. Look around you. Today, well-
     organized Nazi groups form international networks where they 
     help each other to recruit and train new members and learn 
     how to exploit the weaknesses of democracies, how to use 
     terror and frighten witnesses.
       Nazis and revisionists make full and effective use of the 
     new information technology to spread their lies, to sell 
     white power music and to reach potential new members among 
     young people in all parts of the world. Even today, Nazis 
     march in our streets, persecute, assault and murder people 
     because of their ethnic affiliation, sexual preferences or 
     beliefs. The risk we face, is that anti-democratic forces 
     continue to gain support. The danger lies in our failure to 
     learn from history, in our failure to see the connections.
       Ladies and Gentlemen, let me use the words of a survivor, a 
     well-known Swede, the late Professor Jerzy Eihnorn, who 
     passed away less than a week ago. At the Stockholm Forum on 
     the Holocaust in January he said: ``To remember the Holocaust 
     is a fragile defence but still the best one against the 
     development of Nazism in our countries--a reminder of 
     Nazism's ruthless cruelty, a reminder that we must never 
     lower our guard, never accept Nazism as a necessary evil 
     within a democracy.''
       This was his message--a message for all of us. He wanted us 
     to take it with us. Because then, he said: ``our suffering 
     has not been entirely in vain. Then we and all those that did 
     not survive, will have contributed to a better world for 
     coming generations.'' We have to take this message.
       We must fight Nazism, racism, antisemitism and xenophobia 
     wherever and whenever they rear their ugly heads. We must 
     fight them with the lessons of our past, but also with our 
     visions for tomorrow. It will not be easy. But we have no 
     other choice.
       The future is not sealed by fate, no more than the bitter 
     history of the past. It is our actions today--the ones we 
     take and the ones we fail to take--that will shape the 
     future. It is you and I, all of us, united in determination 
     to remember, that are the only guarantees we have against the 
     recurrence of an evil past.
       Ladies and Gentlemen, there is good reason to be fearful, 
     but surely also to feel hope. People want to know, people 
     want to discuss values and ideas, people want to take 
     responsibility and learn from history.
       This is the encouraging conclusion we draw from the 
     national project initiated by the Swedish Government in 
     1997--Living History. The idea was to spread knowledge about 
     the Holocaust to young people in Sweden, but also to generate 
     an active dialogue between generations on values in general.
       To support parents, teachers and students in this task we 
     launched a number of projects. One of these was a book 
     entitled Tell ye your children. The response to the project 
     in general and the book in particular exceeded anything we 
     could have dreamed of. In every second Swedish home with 
     schoolchildren you will find a copy of the book. It was not 
     just sent there. It was ordered by the families who waned to 
     have a base for the important discussion on democratic and 
     humanistic values. I became convinced that this positive 
     experience was not unique to Sweden.
       In January 1998, I wrote to President Clinton and Prime 
     Minister Blair suggesting international cooperation in this 
     field. Little did I then know that only one year later, nine 
     countries--in a network known as the Task Force--would 
     cooperate with such countries as the Czech Republic, Latvia, 
     Lithuania, Argentina and several others in liaison projects 
     designed to remembrance, education and research about the 
     Holocaust.
       As the new millennium dawned, and the very first 
     international high-level conference was held, it didn't deal 
     with economics. Nor did it deal with security and stability.
       It dealt with fundamental values, with democracy and human 
     dignity, with how to confront the better memories of a 
     horrifying past in order to help shape better policies for 
     tomorrow's world. It was the end of silence and the beginning 
     of a new millennium.
       Next year we will meet in Stockholm again. In response to 
     an initiative of the Nobel Laureate Eli Weisel, the Swedish 
     Government will host an annual international conference--a 
     Stockholm Forum on Conscience and Humanity.
       We have to conduct ourselves to the question of Elie 
     Wiesel: ``Will our past become our children's future?''
       We have to learn from the words of another man who has 
     devoted his life to teach about the Holocaust in order to 
     prevent future genocides--professor Yehuda Bauer from Israel 
     and the Yad Vashem Institute. He said:
       ``I come from a people who gave the ten commandments to the 
     world. Time has come to strengthen them by three additional 
     ones, which we ought to adopt and commit ourselves to: thou 
     shall not be a perpetrator; thou shall not be a victim; and 
     thou shall never, but never, be a bystander.''
       Ladies and Gentlemen, today we are gathered to remember.
       Remember, because to forget would be to betray those 
     irreplaceable people who died and those who survived. It 
     would be to betray the deeds or Raoul Wallenberg and all the 
     others who stood up for human dignity and risked their own 
     lives to save the lives of others.
       Remember, because to forget would be to betray every single 
     child who comes into this world.
       Let us therefore remember a little boy in the ghetto of 
     Lodz, and through him all the others who were forced to 
     endure the unthinkable.
       Let us pick up the brother-stones, clasp them firmly in our 
     hands, and realise how much we will need them on our journey 
     through a new century.
       Let us carry them with us as a constant reminder and a 
     challenge to never again allow forces to grow that are 
     capable of such evil.
       Thank you.

       

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