[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 58 (Thursday, May 5, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H3046-H3047]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                COMMEMORATING HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, let me join other colleagues of 
mine in standing today in commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day. 
We celebrate this year, 2005, the 60-year anniversary of the end of 
World War II.
  We also look back at the enormous human loss that occurred in 
concentration camps all over Eastern Europe, all over that continent 
during World War II, and I think it is enormously important that if we 
can somehow distill just three lessons from this time frame, that it be 
the following things: first of all, we instill in our society and 
contemplate the question of hatred, of intolerance, of racial and 
religious bigotry, and we still try to put it in perspective, how some 
human beings can have animus toward other human beings.
  The reality is that in 1930 in the depths of Nazi Germany, there were 
many people who did not take seriously the rhetoric of the Third Reich. 
There were many who did not take seriously the venom that came from 
Adolph Hitler. They had this mindset that it was simply a misbegotten 
ideology. They had the mindset that it was simply words that were meant 
to wound or meant to win an election. They did not realize that there 
was a comprehensive plan to destroy another set of human beings that 
was at stake.
  Similarly today, when we hear lingering anti-Semitism in our society, 
when we hear lingering bigotry and racism in our society, we have a 
tendency at first to think that it is mere words. We have a tendency to 
try to strip those words from any context or any meaning.
  The reality is that what the Holocaust teaches us is that words do 
matter, because they can signal the human soul and just how depraved it 
can be. That is an important lesson that we take from that time frame.
  There is another important lesson that we take. Every now and then, 
there is this tendency to engage in a hierarchy of suffering, to ask 
which was worse, slavery or the Holocaust; which is worse, racial 
bigotry or anti-Semitism or religious bigotry.
  The reality is that there is no hierarchy of hatred. All hatred has a 
tendency to wound and corrupt and to spoil the human soul. All hatred 
has a tendency to degrade both the person who hates and the target. And 
what we have seen in our last half century of human conduct, indeed our 
last century of human conduct, is that neither the left nor the right 
has given ground to each other on this front.
  Both the left and the right have shown enormous capacity to pick up 
weapons against each other and to degrade each other. And it is a 
lesson in these contemptuous times in American politics.

                              {time}  1515

  It is a lesson that if we want to build a sense of humanity in this 
country, that we have to find a way to see past the bitterest and 
darkest divisions of the left and right.
  There is a third lesson, Mr. Speaker. As we look at our place in the 
world today, this is only several weeks after the world lay to rest 
Karol Wojtyla, John Paul II, the leader of the Catholic Church, the 
leader of 1 billion Catholics around the globe. He had a particular 
insight about humanity.
  He understood that poverty and totalitarianism are both threats to 
the human condition. They are both threats to the human soul. Frankly, 
neither the left nor the right in our country have done a good job of 
appreciating the linkage. Neither the left nor the right in our country 
has done a good job of appreciating that these two sources of darkness, 
totalitarianism and intense poverty, are just as destructive of what 
human beings can be. Well, John Paul II understood that.
  As we look at the last 50 or 60 years of suffering in this world, I 
hope we can, as a Congress, challenge the world to a higher standard. 
One that from a standpoint from the left and the right manages to 
condemn political and economic threats to the human spirit.

[[Page H3047]]

  Finally, Mr. Speaker, let me speak for a moment about these victims. 
I had an opportunity in August 2003 to visit the state of Israel and I 
remember going to the museum commemorating the concentration camps in 
the Holocaust. And I remember going specifically to the children's 
section of that museum. As some Members of the Chamber recall, when you 
walk inside the children's section, you are in this very small circular 
room and in the middle of the room sits a glass case. Inside the glass 
case are pictures and photos of children who lost their lives in the 
Holocaust and their voices who read their names over and over again.
  I will remember that image, Mr. Speaker, as I conclude, for a very, 
very long time because it speaks of a Europe and a history that never 
was. It speaks of a destiny for the world that never was. Somewhere in 
those pictures is someone who would have been a chief of state, someone 
who would have been an Olympic athlete, someone who might have 
discovered a cure for cancer.
  As we contemplate this last 60 years may we remember that every time 
we lay waste to a human being, every time we lay waste to a child, that 
there is all kinds of promise that is lost and there is another destiny 
that was there waiting to be born.
  So on behalf of these 6 million victims who were murdered by a state, 
may we think of them today and may we think of them on this Holocaust 
Remembrance Day. May we remember in conclusion the danger whenever 
human beings are degraded and belittled by others.

                          ____________________