[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 16 (Wednesday, January 27, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S165-S166]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, today the world comes together to 
remember the horrors of the Holocaust. We honor the 6 million Jews and 
5 million others--Roma, Afro-Germans, gay men and women, people with 
disabilities and more--whom the Nazis brutally murdered. And we stand 
in awe and celebration of those brave souls who managed to survive.

  It is difficult to comprehend the terror that took place in Europe 
between 1939 and 1945, but we carry on an obligation to those who 
perished and those who survived to prevent further genocide and mass 
atrocities. It is critical that we understand what happened to them so 
we can prevent it from ever happening again.
  One of the most important things to understand about the Holocaust is 
that while a limited group of particularly evil monsters orchestrated 
it, they could not have succeeded without the active or tacit support 
of millions of average people. Men and women agreed to turn over their 
neighbors, patrol the ghettos, drive the cattle cars, guard the death 
camps, and line people up to shoot them down. Men and women decided to 
avert their gaze and do nothing to stop the atrocities.
  I don't believe that all those people were born villains. I think 
they were taught by their communities to adopt a level of anti-Semitism 
and prejudice that likely would have been recognizable to many of us 
today and that the Nazi propaganda masters exploited those feelings. 
That terrifies me because it means that the Holocaust was not an 
anomaly. It means that under the right conditions, a similar atrocity 
could happen again.
  The hatred that gave rise to the Holocaust is still very much alive. 
The Anti-Defamation League's 2014 Global Index of Anti-Semitism found 
that more than 1 billion people--nearly one in eight--around the world 
harbor anti-Semitic attitudes. Over 30 percent of those surveyed said 
that it was ``probably true'' that Jews had too much control over 
financial markets, that Jews think they are better than other people, 
that Jews are disloyal to their country, and that people hate Jews 
because of the way that Jews behave. Such sentiments often translate 
into violence, leading 40 percent of European Jews to report in 2018 
that they lived in daily fear of being physically attacked.
  Sadly, these trends bear out closer to home too. Jews make up fewer 
than 3 percent of the American population, but the majority of reported 
religion-based hate crimes targeted Jewish people or institutions. In 
2019, the ADL reported that anti-Semitism in America had hit a four-
decade high. According to the 2020 survey by the American Jewish 
Committee, more than one-third of American Jews say they have been 
verbally or physically assaulted during the past 5 years simply because 
they are Jewish.
  I believe that the world looks to the United States for moral 
leadership. When we allow anti-Semitism or racism or other kinds of 
intolerance to flourish here, other countries take that as a license to 
do the same. Moreover, we need to recognize the nexus between and 
networking among those who traffic in hate and conspiracies in the 
United States and other like-minded individuals and groups around the 
globe. Combating the most dangerous forms of this bigotry will require 
understanding the ways in which such groups are reinforcing and 
learning from each other.
  Unfortunately, the last 4 years--beginning with White nationalists 
chanting ``Jews will not replace us'' in Charlottesville and ending 
with an insurrectionist wearing a ``Camp Auschwitz'' sweatshirt while 
storming the Capitol--are a dark stain on this country's record. By 
allowing such vicious hatred to take root and to grow, we fail 
ourselves, and we fail the rest of the world.
  Now we have the opportunity to redeem ourselves--to become leaders 
once more in the fight to eliminate anti-Semitism and all forms of 
hatred around the globe. It will not be easy, but it is something we 
have to do, and it starts with education.
  In the ADL's 2014 global survey, 35 percent of the respondents had 
never heard of the Holocaust, and 28 percent of those who did know of 
it believed that the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust had been 
greatly exaggerated. Meanwhile, the AJC's 2020 Survey of the General 
Public found that nearly one-quarter of Americans know nothing or not 
much about the Holocaust, and nearly one-half are not even sure what 
the term ``anti-Semitism'' means.
  How can we hope to learn as a society from the horrors of the 
Holocaust if so many people do not know or do not believe that it 
happened? How can we root out anti-Semitism if almost half of us don't 
understand what it is?
  We must educate the next generation on the horrors of the Holocaust 
and the dangers of intolerance. I am proud to have led efforts to 
provide the full funding of a bill, which our Presiding Officer was 
very much involved with, the Never Again Education Act, and I thank our 
Presiding Officer for her leadership on this issue. That bill expanded 
the reach of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's world-renowned 
education program. This will allow educators across the country from K-
12 through college to access age-appropriate curriculum on the 
Holocaust. It will also bolster the Holocaust Memorial Museum's 
continued collection and use of survivor testimony so that tomorrow's 
leaders will see and hear for themselves why we must never again allow 
hatred to thrive.
  At the same time, we must fight against Holocaust denial in any form 
in any part of the world. As the Organization for Security and Co-
operation in Europe's Parliamentary Assembly's Special Representative 
on Anti-Semitism, Racism and Intolerance, I am committed to countering 
attempts to erase or revise the events of the Holocaust, such as 
Poland's efforts to punish those who speak the truth about the 3 
million Jews killed there. I am deeply disturbed, for instance, by the 
news of a slander lawsuit against two Polish scholars for their 
writings on Jews forced into hiding during the Nazi occupation. I am 
also appalled that Hungary's Viktor Orban has erected a monument that 
tries to whitewash Hungary's wartime role in the murder

[[Page S166]]

of more than a half-million Hungarian Jews. On a day we remember the 
liberation of Auschwitz, I remember, too, that one out of every three 
Jews who died there were Hungarian.
  The Holocaust happened, and it can happen again. It can. We made a 
promise to our grandparents and to our grandchildren that it would 
never happen again. I believe that we are all each responsible for 
keeping that promise. So let us heed the lessons of the past in order 
to build a more peaceful, just, and compassionate future for all.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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