[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 125 (Friday, September 29, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


     RECOGNIZING THE IMPORTANT GREEK HOLIDAYS APPROACHING: CYPRIOT 
               INDEPENDENCE DAY AND GREECE'S ``OXI DAY''

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 29, 2006

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, on Oct. 1, we will celebrate Cypriot 
Independence Day, and at the end of October, the 28th, we will remember 
Greece's ``Oxi Day,'' commemorating the Greek decision to reject and 
resist occupation by the Axis Powers in 1940 during World War II. I ask 
my colleagues to join me in remembering and reflecting on these special 
days in Greek and Cypriot history.
  Greek pride and bravery during the independence struggle in the 1820s 
forged the first successful war for self-determination in the modern 
era. This Greek example has fired the imagination of oppressed peoples 
ever since, including the Jews whose struggle for liberation resulted 
in the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. Both Jews and Greeks 
over the years have had to supply in brains and pluck what they lacked 
in numbers.
  Ever since throwing off the yoke of dictatorship in 1974, the Greek 
people have been one of Europe's amazing success stories. Greece 
entered the European Economic Community and never looked back. Today it 
is a model of growth and prosperity, and for more than three decades it 
has been a vibrant paragon of the gift it gave the world so long ago, 
democracy.
  Since 1974 the little nation of Cyprus has suffered immensely. All 
the more remarkable then that Cyprus has taught the world the lesson of 
how to endure difficult circumstances with uncommon grace, dignity, 
strength, and commitment to humane values. Notwithstanding the horrors 
200,000 Greek Cypriot refugees suffered in 1974, Cyprus remained a 
democracy, and it rebuilt itself into the prosperous European Union 
state of today. Cyprus did not wallow in self-pity, as so many other 
nations have in similar circumstances. Cyprus did not flaunt its 
refugees or make them a spectacle for political propaganda purposes.
  Former Foreign Minister Iacovou once told me a powerful anecdote in 
this regard. He said that, in the wake of the war, one Cypriot official 
wrote a memo to President Makarios urging that the refugees be kept in 
camps with only the most basic of amenities; this, he said, would 
create a weight on the conscience of the world and would boost the 
Greek Cypriot case in the court of international opinion.
  But President Makarios was too wise for that. He wrote back that the 
worst thing Cypriots could do is to compromise the well-being of our 
own people for the sake of propaganda; that, he said, would only heap 
indignity upon their suffering and would be a derogation of the 
government's obligation to its own. In almost no time, Cypriot 
resourcefulness had achieved the rehabilitation of the refugees, and 
refugee neighborhoods were virtually indistinguishable from others, at 
least to others. Cypriots long for the healing of their nation, but 
they lead creative and productive lives every single day.
  Thanks to Makarios's far-sightedness, Cyprus is today a dynamic and 
thriving European state, instead of a benighted third-world backwater. 
Would that the Palestinians had had a Makarios of their own, instead of 
an Arafat. How different the Palestinian refugee situation might be 
today.
  I stand second to nobody in my desire to see a peaceful settlement of 
the Cyprus crisis and to see the breathtaking island of Cyprus fully 
re-united under one government. I also deeply respect the efforts my 
good friend Kofi Annan made toward that end. But first and foremost I 
am a democrat--and I mean, in this case, with a lower-case ``d''. On 
April 24, 2004, the Greek Cypriot people democratically rose up--
virtually with one voice--and rejected the Annan Plan. The 
international community must give that decision its fullest respect, 
and it must draw the obvious implications. When 75% of the people say 
``no,'' the fault lies with the drafters, not the people.
  Mr. Speaker, earlier this summer, I was honored with the Mordechai 
Frizis Award. This honor is named after the Jewish Greek hero from 
Chalkis who was the first high-ranking Greek military officer to give 
his life in defense of freedom against the Axis powers in 1940.
  As the only survivor of the Holocaust ever elected to Congress, I saw 
first-hand the atrocities of that time. I lost my family, and my wife 
lost most of her family. Many others lost their lives and their 
families.
  Over 55 million people died in World War II, including Mordechai 
Frizis. Had brave and selfless people like Frizis not fought against 
the evils of the Hitler regime and even been willing to die for our 
freedom, the outcome could have been even worse. We are much in the 
debt of the Morodohai Frizis's of the world.
  The indigenous Jewish communities of Greece represent the longest 
continuous Jewish presence in Europe. Tragically, these communities 
were almost completely destroyed during the Holocaust. Greece lost at 
least 81 percent of its Jewish population during the Holocaust. 60,000 
to 70,000 Greek Jews perished, most of them at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
  Only 8,000 to 10,000 Greek Jews survived. The number would have been 
even smaller, had it not been for the Greek people who were unwilling 
to cooperate with German plans for their deportation, and Greek 
resistance groups who battled the Axis occupiers to save Greece and the 
Jews living there.
  The Frizis Award contains the soil of Greece, the U.S., and Israel. 
All three countries have deep meaning in my life, and the connection 
between the three is even more important. I thank the Greek, and of 
course the Cypriot, people for their great contributions not only to 
the world, but also to me personally, and to my wife. We and the entire 
world are better for these contributions.
  The fact that Mordechai Frizis was the first Greek killed in the 
first successful battle against the fascists in World War II has an 
overpowering symbolism for the world and for me personally. The 
onslaught of the fascists was, in fact, an assault on the very values 
that Hellenic and Jewish civilizations represent, particularly the 
joint commitment of our cultures to ethics and honest rational 
discourse. As we face a war on terrorism today, once again Jewish and 
Hellenic values are at the barricades facing the barbarians and their 
totalitarian, violent ideology. Once again, it is our fierce commitment 
to what we know is right, our conviction that the barbarous cannot be 
allowed to win, and our courage that will see us through.
  Mordechai Frizis was a man--a Greek, a Jew, and, from what I've read, 
a brilliant and highly capable officer. But circumstances have endowed 
him with so much more, with near-mythical status. For Mordechai Frizis 
is a metaphor for all that Greeks and Jews have suffered, all that we 
have triumphed, all the values that we would not compromise and that we 
have insisted that the civilized world embrace.
  That is why I was deeply honored and grateful to receive the Frizis 
award, and that is one reason why the Hellenic world has my enduring 
friendship and support.
  I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating our Greek and 
Cypriot friends as we all remember the October 1st Cypriot Independence 
Day and Greece's ``Oxi Day'' on October 29.

                          ____________________