[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 10 (Wednesday, February 1, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E67-E68]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         REMEMBERING THE HOLOCAUST WHILE FIGHTING ANTI-SEMITISM

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 1, 2006

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, the anniversary of the 
liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps is often selected as 
the day to honor those murdered at the hands of the Nazis and their 
collaborators. More than one million people were killed at Auschwitz 
before the survivors were liberated on January 27, 1945. Appropriately, 
each January 27, individuals and governments around the world pause to 
remember those individuals murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. 
Also known as the Sho'ah, Hebrew for ``calamity,'' the Holocaust 
witnessed the death of six million Jews by the Nazi killing machine, 
many of them in concentration camps or elsewhere in a web that 
stretched throughout the heart of Europe. Millions of individuals--
political dissidents, Jehovah's Witnesses, those with disabilities, and 
others including entire Romani families--also perished at the hands of 
the Nazis.
  Holocaust Remembrance Day also celebrates those brave souls who faced 
unimaginable horrors and lived to tell of their experiences. In a 
historic first, late last year the United Nations designated January 27 
as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Initial drafters of the 
resolution--Australia, Canada, Israel, Russia and the United States--
were joined by 100 nations in sponsoring the resolution in the General 
Assembly. Other international organizations, like the Organization for 
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), have done much to ensure the 
lessons of the Holocaust are taught in schools across Europe, including 
the former Soviet Union. In addition, the Belgian Chair-in-Office of 
the OSCE held a commemorative event for Holocaust victims on January 27 
in Brussels.
  Unfortunately, while the Holocaust is rightly remembered, its lessons 
have yet to be fully learned. Early on, the world said ``Never Again'' 
to genocide, only to allow genocide to happen again in Bosnia-
Herzegovina and Rwanda in the 1990s, and in Darfur today. The 
establishment of international tribunals to seek justice in response to 
these crimes may indicate some progress, but the best way to honor the 
lives of those who died during the Holocaust or in subsequent genocides 
would be to have the resolve to take decisive action to try to stop the 
crime in the first place.
  Some heads of state refuse to recognize even the existence of the 
Holocaust. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, made the 
outrageous claim on December 14 that Europeans had ``created a myth in 
the name of Holocaust.'' Showing his virulent anti-Semitic nature, two 
months earlier in October, he said Israel is ``a disgraceful blot'' 
that should be ``wiped off the map.'' While Ahmadinejad's anti-Semitic 
hate is shocking, other hate mongers have physically attacked Jews. In 
early January, a knife-wielding skinhead shouting ``I will kill Jews'' 
and ``Heil Hitler'' burst into a Moscow synagogue and stabbed at least 
eight worshippers. A copycat attack followed in Rostov-on-Don, with the 
attacker thankfully being stopped inside the synagogue before anyone 
was hurt.

[[Page E68]]

  As Co-Chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, I have worked over 
the past four years with other Members of Congress and parliamentarians 
from around the world to fight anti-Semitism. I was pleased to have 
either authored or cosponsored three resolutions at the OSCE 
Parliamentary Assembly, which condemned anti-Semitism, while also being 
a principal sponsor to the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act that passed 
the Congress and was signed into law by President Bush in 2004. 
Internationally, the OSCE has held three international meetings 
focusing on anti-Semitism and has pledged to hold another major 
conference in Romania in 2007.
  Mr. Speaker, while our struggle continues, we have made progress, 
moving governments and international organizations to begin to act. To 
reverse Edmund Burke's truism, what is necessary for the triumph of 
good over evil is for good men and women to take action.

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