[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 87 (Friday, June 13, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1236]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        WATCHMAN, WHAT OF NIGHT?

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 12, 2003

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, last month leaders and citizens from 
throughout America gathered in the Capitol Rotunda to commemorate the 
Days of Remembrance. The ceremony had many powerful moments, but none 
more moving than the remarks of my good friend Dr. Elie Wiesel, the 
Founding Chair of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council and one 
of the world's foremost champions for human rights and civil liberties.
  A native of Romania, Elie Wiesel was fifteen when he and his family 
were deported to Auschwitz. His mother and younger sister perished, but 
he survived with the conviction that the international community must 
never forget the lessons of the Holocaust. During the past fifty years, 
as both an author and a teacher, Dr. Wiesel has devoted his life to 
this end.
  However, to classify Elie Wiesel's legacy as one of remembrance takes 
into account only a small portion of his impact on society. He has 
spoken out not only against anti-Jewish atrocities, but also on behalf 
of victims from every corner of the globe, from Argentina's 
Desaparecidos to refugees of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime. When Dr. 
Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, his speech clearly 
elucidated the link between the Holocaust and all other human rights 
abuses:

       Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere. 
     . . . As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will 
     not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our life will be 
     filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need 
     above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not 
     forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall 
     lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the 
     quality of our freedom depends on theirs.

  Mr. Speaker, on April 30 we were once again privileged to learn from 
this extraordinary man. Dr. Wiesel used his remarks to remind us that 
horrific memories of the Holocaust do not constitute a social end in 
and of themselves; rather, they must be used to ameliorate suffering in 
today's world and in that of tomorrow. ``If we want to remember,'' he 
said, ``if we want you to remember all those emaciated faces, all those 
burning eyes, all those muted prayers, it is not only for our sake but 
also for your children's and theirs. . . . Is memory the only answer to 
the tragedy itself? But whatever the answer, memory is its most 
indispensable element.''
  Mr. Speaker, I am honored to enter the full text of Elie Wiesel's 
remarks into the Congressional Record.

                      Days of Remembrance Remarks


 elie wiesel, founding chair united states holocaust memorial council, 
                  april 30, 2003--the capitol rotunda

       From Isaiah, chapter 21: Shomer, ma milail? Watchman, what 
     of the night? This ancient call of the prophet of 
     chastisement and consolation reverberates in our memory today 
     as we remember the men and women, young and old, rich and 
     poor, learned and ignorant, secular and pious, dreamers of 
     sacred blessings and seekers of hidden redemption, who were 
     sentenced to suffer unparalleled agony and solitude in 
     ghettos and death-camps not for what they have done or 
     possessed or believed in but for what they were, sons and 
     daughters of a people whose memory of persecution was the 
     oldest in recorded history.
       All the rivers run to the sea, days come and go, 
     generations vanish, others are born, remembrance ceremonies 
     follow one another--and hatred is still alive, and some of 
     us, the remnant of the remnant, wonder with the poet Paul 
     Celan: who will bear witness for the witness, who will 
     remember what some of us tried to relate about a time of fear 
     and darkness when so many, too many victims felt abandoned, 
     forgotten, unworthy of compassion and solidarity? Who will 
     answer questions whose answers the dead took with them? Who 
     will feel qualified enough and strong enough, faithful enough 
     to confront their fiery legacy?
       What was and remains clear to some of us, here and 
     elsewhere, is the knowledge that if we forget them, we too 
     shall be forgotten.
       But is remembrance enough? What does one do with the memory 
     of agony and suffering? Memory has its own language, its own 
     texture, its own secret melody, its own archeology and its 
     own limitations: it too can be wounded, stolen and shamed; 
     but it is up to us to rescue it and save it from becoming 
     cheap, banal, and sterile.
       Like suffering, like love, memory does not confer special 
     privileges. It all depends on what one does with what we 
     receive, for what purpose, in the name of what ideal. If we 
     invoke our right, our obligation to remember a frightened 
     child who, in a ghetto, was assassinated before the eyes of 
     his mother, an old teacher beaten to death in the presence of 
     his disciples, a nocturnal procession walking towards open 
     pits already filled with corpses, a beautiful woman driven 
     insane with grief before being knifed by the killer--if we 
     want to remember, if we want you to remember all those 
     emaciated faces, all those burning eyes, all those muted 
     prayers, it is not only for our sake but also for your 
     children's and theirs.
       If it weren't for their memory, much of what has been 
     undertaken and even accomplished would be without relevance--
     and worse: without meaning.
       To remember means to lend an ethical dimension to all 
     endeavors and aspirations. When you, my good friend Secretary 
     Powell, search deep into your heart, you find that most of 
     your diplomatic initiatives and military responses have been 
     rooted in your faith in the mysterious power of History of 
     which memory is made. Isn't that principle the one that keeps 
     on governing all our lives? Wasn't 1938 the main factor in 
     your recent decision-making regarding Iraq? In those years 
     there were two great powers in Europe: France and Great 
     Britain. Had they intervened instead of preaching 
     appeasement, there would have been no world war, no 
     Auschwitz.
       Watchman, what of the night?
       Is memory the only answer to the Tragedy itself? But 
     whatever the answer, memory is its most indispensable 
     element.
       An ancient Talmudic legend tells us that when the soul 
     leaves the body to return to heaven, it cries out in great 
     pain; and the outcry is so powerful that it reverberates 
     throughout creation. What about the outcry of six million 
     souls?
       Well, among the victims who were killed there was a 12-
     year-old girl, Yunite Vishniatzky, from a small village named 
     Byten near Slutsk. This is her last letter, dated July 31, 
     1942: . . . ``Dear Father, I say good-bye to you before dying 
     . . . We want very much to live . . . But they won't let us--
     that's how it goes . . . I am so afraid of dying: small 
     children are thrown into the grave alive . . . I say good-bye 
     to you forever . . . And give you a big kiss . . . Your 
     Yunite . . .''
       Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? 
     And the watchman says: the morning comes, and also the night 
     . . .
       So--we remember all the children whose lives bothered the 
     enemy so much he felt the irresistible urge to wipe them out. 
     We remember Yunite Vishniatzky . . .
       When her soul left her frail body, was her cry heard by 
     anyone, anywhere?

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