[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 53 (Thursday, April 22, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E640]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ROSA L. DeLAURO

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 22, 2004

  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, today marks the national commemoration of 
Holocaust Remembrance Day. Today the Congress will stop to remember the 
six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. That dark time in history 
taught us lessons which we must always remember, and which must guide 
our future. We know the depths to which humanity can descend; we know 
how millions of people can embrace evil; and we know that it must never 
happen again.
  Indeed, from that terrible moment in history, the world took up a 
battle cry against bigotry and hatred: ``Never again.'' As the world's 
only superpower, it is our responsibility to make that statement an 
element of our foreign policy. The United States must be ever vigilant 
in preventing genocide, as we did in Kosovo. We must be willing to 
stand up quickly and forcefully to the ideology of hate, wherever we 
find it.
  We must be vigilant at home, as well. This vigilance requires us to 
tell the story of the Holocaust to each other and to our children. We 
owe nothing less to the survivors and to the brave men who fought to 
liberate the Ghettos and the death camps. We also owe this debt to the 
men and women who, in the midst of Holocaust, stood out as some of 
humanity's brightest lights: Raoul Wallenberg and Per Anger provided 
nearly 100,000 Hungarian Jews with fake passports and other tools to 
escape Nazi persecution. Oskar Schindler's employment of Polish Jews 
spared thousands from death. In Denmark, entire fishing communities 
helped ferry almost 90 percent of Denmark's Jews to safety in Sweden. 
These stories must be told.
  On this day when the Congress stops to remember the six million 
people slaughtered in the Holocaust, I hope that we also recall these 
incredible stories of courage and of the good that humanity can 
achieve, even in the midst of unspeakable horror.

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