[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 53 (Thursday, April 22, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E639]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          REMEMBER YOM HASHOAH

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JOSEPH CROWLEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 22, 2004

  Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join people around the 
world to remember Yom HaShoah. Remembrance of victims of the Holocaust 
is an indispensable and enduring task. We all must honor and identify 
with the victims.
  The most horrifying extent of anti-Semitism took place during the 
Nazi and Fascist reign in Europe. Jewish people were beaten, 
discriminated, and deported to concentration camps where they had to 
suffer from hard labor and medical experiments or were executed in gas 
chambers. This most horrible form of anti-Semitism took the lives of 
more than six million people, and the Jewish fate must never be 
forgotten. Indeed, we must ensure that the seeds of anti-Semitism are 
never sown again in Europe or elsewhere in the world.
  And although we are currently in the sixth decade after the end of 
the Holocaust, the fight against anti-Semitism is far from over. Quite 
the contrary, new hatred against Jews can be witnessed in Europe, the 
Caucasus, and Central Asia. Nazi slogans are shouted in the streets of 
Germany, synagogues are burnt, and Jews are beaten up. This kind of 
hatred has already brought catastrophe to the Jewish people. 
Remembrance of the past is therefore essential as it helps focus 
attention on current and future threats to the Jewish people.
  Remembrance must, however, go beyond intellectual insight and 
historical facts and should also include an emotional understanding, as 
far as this is possible. Only then are people ready to develop an 
attitude of zero-tolerance against anti-Semitism and discrimination in 
general.

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