[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 64 (Thursday, May 10, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4817-S4818]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        WAGRO ANNUAL TRIBUTE TO THE MARTYRS OF THE WARSAW GHETTO

  Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, on April 22, 2001 I delivered a 
statement before the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance Organization's, WAGRO, 
Annual Tribute to the Martyrs of the Warsaw Ghetto, at Temple Emanuel 
in New York City. I ask unanimous consent that my remarks be printed in 
the Record along with the statement delivered on the same day by Mr. 
Benjamin Mead, President of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance Organization, 
WAGRO.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       Mrs. Clinton. Good afternoon.
       It's an honor for me to be here as your Senator, but more 
     than that, as a fellow human being who is called upon to 
     remember. I am also pleased to be here with the Governor, the 
     Mayor, and my friend and partner, Senator Schumer.
       I would only add to the strong words that Senator Schumer 
     has just expressed, for most of us, if not all of us. That in 
     addition to the Jewish people and the people of Israel, 
     protecting themselves, the government and the people of the 
     United States must stand with the government and people of 
     Israel in that endeavor. And we will reassert as strongly as 
     possible the need for our government to do that in every way 
     necessary.
       What brings us here today as we commemorate the six million 
     Jewish martyrs and the 58th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto 
     Uprising, is not to relive the pain for those of us who can't 
     possibly imagine. But to honor and respect the survivors and 
     to join together in pledging that the sacrifice and the 
     spirit was never extinguished, never given in vain.
       I remember being in Warsaw with Ben and Vladka and looking 
     at some of the same places that he referred to, that he saw 
     with horror as a young man, as the Warsaw Ghetto was burned. 
     And as we remember Warsaw and as we do again today in New 
     York. Those young people, primarily young people, who 
     struggled, who understood the central mission of their fight: 
     to live with honor.
       And what a struggle and what fighters and what an army they 
     were. The Warsaw Ghetto fighters constituted an army of hope. 
     These young soldiers, who smuggled arms, created bunkers, 
     established a system of intelligence and organized their 
     community, they transformed a ghetto, which the Nazis had 
     established as a mere way station to the death camps, into a 
     battlefield.
       The Warsaw Ghetto fighters turned their vulnerability and 
     disadvantage, into an espirit de corps that shocked their 
     enemy. Let us not forget, it took the Nazi troops longer to 
     put down the ghetto revolt than it took to conquer all of 
     Poland.
       When I read about or think back or when Ben or Vladka or 
     others tell me of the first hand experience of what those 
     days were like, I imagine the months of organizing and 
     smuggling and hiding, that made that uprising possible. I 
     imagine as though it were a ray of light penetrating the 
     walls of the ghetto. The constant renaissance of spirit and 
     courage that took place under the worst of all possible 
     conditions.
       And I especially felt that, Vladka, after reading your 
     poignant account of the resistance. I commend that to you, as 
     I do the real life experiences and remembrances that we 
     should be passing on and teaching to our children.
       Vladka describes the feeling of standing on the brink of an 
     abyss. She conveys the sense of despair that pervades the 
     emptied, ravaged ghetto. She recalls that, ``All roads in the 
     ghetto seemed to lead to Treblinka; there was no escape.''
       And yet at the moment when all seemed lost, something 
     changes. And she tells the story of the resistance and 
     describes the hidden hope and the gathering storm of courage 
     brewing beneath the ruins. She eloquently writes, ``A spark 
     had been smoldering . . .  in the ghetto. Now it began to 
     glow, slowly, tentatively at first, then ever more 
     fiercely.''
       As I watched the women climb the steps to light the 
     candles, I thought about that flame. I thought about the 
     flame of determination and yes, even triumph. That flame that 
     today stands as the greatest rebuke, not only to the Nazis, 
     but anti-Semites and evildoers everywhere. That flame did 
     keep hope and courage alive and with it, the will to live.
       One of my favorite biblical passages comes from the book of 
     Deuteronomy. God has gathered his people together to explain 
     their obligations to him and to each other. And He tells 
     them, ``Before you I have placed life and death, the blessing 
     and the curse. You must choose life, so that you and your 
     descendants will survive.'' Even in the darkest hours of the 
     Holocaust, in the death camps and certainly, in the Warsaw 
     Ghetto that is the choice the martyrs, heroes and survivors 
     made. They chose life.
       And we today, in some small and totally inadequate way, not 
     only remember them, but come to thank them for reminding us 
     that we must always choose life as well.
       Thank you and God bless you.

           From Remembrance Must Come Truth and Understanding

       Mr. Mead: This week, as Jews come together to remember, 
     from Jerusalem to Buenos Aires from New York to London, 
     Paris, Toronto, we find ourselves asking the same painful and 
     unanswered questions which have tormented us for the past 
     years: How could the nearly total destruction of European 
     Jewry have happened? How could the world have stood by 
     silently?
       Why were we left so alone and abandoned?
       Language does not exist to describe what our people endured 
     in those years. We tremble to think what could happen if we 
     allow a new generation to arise, ignorant of the tragedy 
     which is still shaping the future.
       The dread we have carried in ourselves from the Holocaust 
     has just been aroused again with the publication of shocking 
     details about the atrocious murder of the 1600 Jews in 
     Jedwabne, Poland.
       On a single day in July, 1941, a German mobile killing unit 
     had arrived to ``cleanse'' the town of the Jews who made up 
     half of its population. But their ``Neighbors'' decided to 
     take the genocide into their own hands. They went on a 
     murderous rampage, killing Jews in the streets. Then they 
     rounded up a thousand more Jews and burned them alive in a 
     barn. Of the town's Jewish population, only seven people 
     survived who were in hiding.
       The people who murdered those Jews were not strangers. They 
     were not members of an elite political party committed to 
     racial genocide. Nor were they soldiers taking orders. They 
     were their neighbors.
       We have good reason to fear that there are many more 
     Jedwabne's which have yet to come to light. We are here to 
     remember each community of Jews, which was destroyed.
       We must also remember that there were righteous gentiles 
     among the Polish population, and throughout Europe, who 
     risked and even sacrificed their lives to protect Jews. I 
     would not be here myself if it had not been for some of those 
     courageous and heroic people. But how few they were.
       The realization that so many participated and collaborated 
     with our enemy in the nearly total destruction of European 
     Jewry reminds us that the impossible is possible--that the 
     unthinkable can happen. So many stood silently by and watched 
     as the horrors took place before their eyes, so many blinded 
     themselves from recognizing the barbarity of what they saw, 
     and were deaf to our cries for help.
       Fifty-eight years ago, during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, I 
     stood in Krasinski Square outside a Catholic church which 
     faced the ghetto wall, a young Jewish boy posing as a 
     gentile. The air throbbed with the blasts of German artillery 
     bombardment. A carousel turned, music blared, and children 
     and their parents rode as I watched the horrifying sight of 
     the ghetto burning. Its houses were in flames, and its 
     remaining inhabitants jumping out of windows. I could not 
     believe that the people around me actually rejoiced and 
     reveled, declaring, ``the Jews are frying!''
       It is not for us to grant forgiveness for the crimes of the 
     Holocaust. That can come only from the victims. We cannot 
     forget the Nazis Germans who ordered the ``Final Solution.'' 
     Nor can we forget either the ``willing executioners'' who 
     participated in the systematic genocide, or the by-standers.
       We are learning and documenting how hatred and greed 
     motivated and aided in the destruction of our people. Germany 
     and individuals throughout Europe profited by using Jewish 
     slave labor for military purposes, and for the production of 
     consumer goods for their home front as well.
       Last Thursday, the State of Israel observed Yom Ha Shoah--
     everything came to a standstill. Today we stand in resolute 
     solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Israel, where a 
     large community of Holocaust survivors resides, where Arab 
     violence must come to an end, and where both Jews and Arabs 
     must forge a common peaceful destiny. After the Holocaust, we 
     survivors chose life, not hatred; we chose to struggle for 
     understanding rather than to take revenge. We continue to 
     build new families, new generations. We must do all that is 
     possible to ensure that those who follow us will not face 
     evil, ruthless destruction, as was visited upon us. Thus, we 
     remember the past for the sake of our future.

[[Page S4818]]

       Now, more than at any other time in history, the world's 
     wellbeing depends upon the awareness of humankind's 
     interlocking fate. We Holocaust survivors, for whom there 
     were so many enemies and so few rescuers, are determined to 
     extend our commitment to remembrance, education and 
     documentation by bearing witness to what we experienced as 
     fully as we can.
       We now stand at a half-century's distance from the events 
     which shaped our lives and reshaped history. We look back and 
     remember. Our memory is a warning, for all people and all 
     time.
       Let us remember!

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