[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 8 (Tuesday, February 1, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E119]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




COMMENDING COUNTRIES AND ORGANIZATIONS FOR MARKING 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF 
                        LIBERATION OF AUSCHWITZ

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                               speech of

                            HON. ARTUR DAVIS

                               of alabama

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 25, 2005

  Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, as we convene for the beginning of 
the 109th Congress, one of our first acts is the commemoration of the 
60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. We remember the heroic 
forces that brought an end to the brutal atrocities against mankind, 
and we necessarily remember the death camp itself, the immoral center 
of last century's greatest genocide.
  We understand better today than we did then that the purpose of 
genocide, racism, of anti-Semitism, is the degradation of the spirit of 
the victims and their kind. It is the malice of group hatred that 
reigned at Auschwitz. Consequently, our moral necessity today is to 
leave bigotry without any safe ground to stand upon. A false 
understanding of our liberal values sometimes leads us to refrain from 
attacks on intolerance--the harder truth is that we should put our 
liberal values in fierce competition with religious and ethnic hatred, 
and deploy those values to counter the demonizing of race and sects 
that still goes on.
  Freedom is a worldwide value worth defending and expanding. To be 
won, that struggle too must be informed by remembrance: Freedom fares 
very well in the tolerant places in the human condition and never lasts 
long in the bigoted, hateful, mean spirited places.
  Mr. Speaker that is one reason we pass this resolution today--to link 
our current struggles to our past ones.
  Never Again, Never Forget

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