[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 53 (Thursday, April 22, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E641-E642]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  SO THAT THE WORLD WILL NEVER FORGET: REMEMBERING THE VICTIMS OF THE 
                               HOLOCAUST

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. KENDRICK B. MEEK

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 22, 2004

  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to join with my 
community and my colleagues to recognize Yom HaShoah, the day 
established to remember the state-sponsored persecution and murder of 
approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its 
collaborators.
  Yom HaShoah, the Hebrew word for destruction, is the term used to 
describe the war that swept up the souls of six million Jews between 
1938 and 1945. A war in which unspeakable atrocities were perpetrated 
against a defenseless and blameless people, whose only ``crime'' was 
their religious beliefs.
  Men and women, young and old alike, perished at the hands of the 
Nazis and their allies. Every year, on Yom HaShoah, we remember the 
martyrs who perished in the camps, in the ghettos, and in the gas 
chambers.
  It has been 60 years since the Holocaust. To survivors, and those who 
lost friends and family members, it remains real and ever-present. But 
to many people, who did not directly experience the Holocaust or have a 
connection to those who did, 60 years makes the Holocaust seem like 
ancient history.

[[Page E642]]

  It is for this reason that we meet here today, for the world must 
never forget the unspeakable horror of the Holocaust. Every person has 
a responsibility to fight against ignorance, intolerance and prejudice 
in all its forms.
  So let us rededicate ourselves as we commemorate this day of Yom 
HaShoah, so that the memories of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust 
can live on for eternity and that a tragedy like this will never happen 
on the face of the earth again.

                          ____________________