[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 71 (Wednesday, April 26, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H2878-H2879]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1545
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
(Mr. HILL asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the Days of
Remembrance and pay tribute to all those who were affected by the
enormity, the calamity, and the horrors of the Holocaust.
On April 11, 1945, at 3 p.m. in the afternoon, General Patton's Third
Army liberated Buchenwald concentration camp, with the help of my
father-in-law, Bill McKenzie, then a young 22-year-old U.S Army
officer, fresh from the corps at Texas A&M University.
Bill said of that day: ``I will not describe the horrible sight of
our entry into Buchenwald, but I will tell you this--that the
crematorium was still
[[Page H2879]]
burning, dead were stacked like cordwood on large trailers, and the
living dead were starving.''
Some 65 years later, I would deliver the eulogy at Bill's funeral and
read a condolence letter sent to our family from the nephew of a
survivor he rescued that day.
As a member of the Greatest Generation, Bill will always be
remembered by us as a hero, and his role liberating innocent people
from the Nazi Germany death camps is a proud distinction for our
family. His story serves as a reminder that these atrocities have no
place in our world.
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