[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 21 (Friday, February 2, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E126-E127]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, February 2, 2018

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, this past Saturday, January 27, 2018, 
we observed International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day in which we 
take time from our busy lives to remember and mourn the millions of 
souls lost in the Holocaust, the worst example of man's inhumanity to 
man in human history.
  Nearly 73 years have passed since the end of World War II but for 
those who survived, and the descendants and relatives of those who 
perished, the Holocaust is not ancient history but a reminder of the 
evil that can be unleased when humans give into their worst instincts 
and appetites.
  The Holocaust's magnitude of destruction numbered more than 12 
million deaths, including 6 million Jews and 1.5 million children (more 
than \2/3\ of European Jewry).
  A haunting quote in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 
refers to the story of Cain and Abel:

       ``The Lord said, `What have you done? Listen! Your 
     brother's blood cries out to me from the ground (Genesis 
     4:11).' ''

  The Holocaust forces us to confront uncomfortable questions such as 
the responsibilities of citizenship and the consequences of 
indifference and inaction, and the importance of education and 
awareness.
  The Holocaust is a testament to the fragility of democracy.
  We must resolve to resist prejudice and intolerance in any form.
  It fills me with grief to know that the leaders of nations can 
destroy their own, as did the Nazi regime; yet I hope that we can 
continue to strengthen the means by which we can pursue justice.
  And I am saddened, outraged, and embarrassed that the current 
President of the United States could think it proper to characterize, 
as he did on August 15, 2017, as ``very fine people,'' persons who 
adhere to the ideology of the Nazi regime and deny the existence of the 
defining crime of the 20th Century, the murder of 6 million persons for 
no reason other than they were Jews.
  Before that date, never before in history had a President of the 
United States, the nation that led the alliance that defeated Nazism 
and fascism in the greatest conflict in world history,

[[Page E127]]

ever publicly defended or tried to normalize neo-Nazis or White 
Supremacists.
  But the vast majority of American do not share the current 
President's view and reject the suggestion that there is a moral 
equivalence between those who advocate racial separation and white 
supremacy and those, like the Anti-Defamation League and the NAACP, who 
are unalterably opposed to that evil, racist ideology and are united in 
this prayer and promise: Never Again.

                          ____________________