[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 52 (Monday, April 13, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E455]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    CELEBRATING THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIBERATION OF AUSCHWITZ

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                          HON. E. SCOTT RIGELL

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, April 13, 2015

  Mr. RIGELL. Mr. Speaker, celebrating the 70th anniversary of the 
liberation of Auschwitz--forever a symbol of human evil and depravity--
and the end of WWII, history's bloodiest war claiming 50 million lives, 
along with celebrating the 67th anniversary of the State of Israel 
reborn in its wake, we are duty-bound to remember these milestones that 
humanity may yet be free from threats to its very survival.
   As a son of Polish Holocaust survivors who spent his early childhood 
in Kazakhstan, Poland, Austria and Germany, I wrote the following poem, 
``So unpredictably, in a humble corner/Of the Displaced Persons Camps/
Exhibit in Richmond's Virginia Holocaust/Museum, a family's trying past 
at/Last has come to rest,/Guarded on a consecrated wall,/Inviting home, 
allowing unreservedly to/Shed a flowing tear; among the/Remnant of a 
people deemed expendable/It finds acceptance that only/Those touched by 
common loss/Provide, for they have shared/The fire and the pain.''
   We cherish the victims, survivors and liberators. The majority of 
the Holocaust survivors have lived in Israel where I grew up beginning 
in 1949, and those still alive along with their descendants and all 
Israelis, Jews and Arabs, are vulnerable given Iran's genocidal agenda 
begrudging Jewish survival and the one and only Jewish state. Iran's 
agents of terror are active on Israel's south and north borders. I 
travelled this past January on a Leadership Mission of the Central 
Conference of American Rabbis (Reform), witnessing first-hand Israel's 
unique security concerns. We visited Moshav Netiv Ha'asarah on Gaza's 
border that was hit during the recent 50-day Gaza War and saw an 
opening of a tunnel dug from Gaza. Israel's resilient people have been 
terrorized by Hamas' rockets and shells far too long. From Mt. Bental 
on the Golan Heights at a UN observation post, we gazed on a cold and 
foggy day at ominous Syria, aware that Hezbollah there and in nearby 
Lebanon possesses 150,000 rockets at Iran's command.
   Shiite Iran's drive for a nuclear capability is an overriding goal 
for its dictatorial clerics whose menacing tentacles pose unacceptable 
risk not only to Israel, alarming enough, but also to the entire Sunni 
Arab world whose domination it seeks. Israel's incredible and 
unshakable bond (so should it remain!) of mutual benefit and common 
vision with the United States whom Iran calls the ``Great Satan,'' 
further makes Israel, the ``Little Satan,'' a target for a repressive 
regime finding the West's progressive democracy anathema. While ISIS 
(The Islamic State) continues planting death and destruction in a 
widening range of global aspirations, with brazen barbarism of medieval 
darkness challenging civilization's norms. Brutal President Assad's 
genocidal assaults on his own Syrian people have so tragically passed 
the fourth year mark, with over 200,000 dead, thousands tortured in 
prisons, 3.9 million refugees mostly in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, and 
7.6 million displaced within Syria, with the international community 
shamefully watching a catastrophe of a profusely bleeding wound 
infecting an entire region and beyond.
   Israel, treating wounded and willing Syrians and ever present when 
disaster strikes anywhere, is the only source of stability and 
modernity in that troubled part of the world, and in its recent 
democratic elections Israeli Arabs freely participated (a right denied 
in the neighboring Arab States) winning the third largest bloc in the 
Knesset. The arduous search for peace with the Palestinians, who are 
yet to recognize Israel as the Jewish state it is, remains a steadfast 
goal in spite of Hamas' avowed aim to fight Israel, and its alliance 
with the Palestinian Authority. Israel struggles to address its 
socioeconomic gap and the Jewish pluralism issue, recognizing its 
astonishing and leading accomplishments testimony to being heir to the 
great Jewish legacy enriching the human family. The misguided BDS 
(Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement only serves to weaken 
Israel and the prospects for peace that only a strong Israel can 
conclude, being the world's only democracy whose very existence and 
identity are questioned. A growing anti-Semitism in Europe, scene of 
the unfathomable Holocaust, with murderous acts in Belgium, France and 
Denmark, threatens Europe's historical Jewish presence.
   At this season of sacred and soaring remembrance, we recall the 50th 
anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March, the preceding ``Bloody 
Sunday'' of March 7, 1965, and the following Voting Rights Act. Rabbis 
and Jewish laypersons were disproportionally involved in the Civil 
Rights Movement and stood by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to uplift 
America to live up to its glorious promise for all. My synagogue is the 
world's only home to two African-American churches.
   The forthcoming Tiananmen Square Massacre 26th anniversary on June 
6th, 2015, prompts me to share my experience, ``The Kaddish letters 
grow/Small in this overwhelming/Space of invisible evil./I shield them 
in the pocket,/Close to my heart,/Away from the menacing/Look of the 
Chinese soldier,/To protect memory.'' May our anguished planet know 
soon, in partnership with the Most High, Shalom's essential blessings 
of healing, hope and harmony. Amen.
   Dr. Israel Zoberman is the founding rabbi of Congregation Beth 
Chaverim in Virginia Beach.

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