[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 168 (Thursday, November 14, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H5979-H5980]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              ANTI-SEMITISM IS RETURNING WITH A VENGEANCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
North Carolina (Ms. Manning) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. MANNING. Mr. Speaker, I am deeply concerned that history is 
repeating itself. Anti-Semitism, Jew hatred, the demonizing, 
terrorizing, and killing of innocent Jews, especially women and 
children, is returning with a vengeance.
  I want to take us back 83 years to December 15 of 1941 in Liepaja, 
Latvia.
  For 3 terrifying days, German Nazis and Latvian collaborators rounded 
up thousands of Jewish women and children, forced them to march in the 
freezing cold to a beach on the Baltic Sea, ordered them to strip off 
their

[[Page H5980]]

clothing, and shot them dead in groups of 10 while others looked on 
terrified.
  This horrific massacre has been memorialized by a brilliant Jewish 
artist in my community, Victoria Carlin Milstein, in a sculpture she 
has named ``She Wouldn't Take Off Her Boots.'' The sculpture, which 
stands in LeBauer Park in downtown Greensboro shows a grandmother, her 
daughter, and her three granddaughters, arms locked together, awaiting 
their gruesome fate. All are barefoot, except the grandmother, who in 
an act of defiance, refused to take off her boots.
  The sculpture was based on a haunting photograph taken by the Nazis 
to document their cruelty. The artist has placed a bronze camera in 
front of the statue so each person can look through the camera lens and 
see exactly what the photographer saw before the family was shot. Each 
person who looks through that camera is a witness to the unimaginable 
cruelty that was inflicted on innocent Jews while others stood by 
either complicit or silent.
  A film has been made about the creation of this sculpture and a 
curriculum written to educate students and teachers about this dark 
time in history when 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.
  Tragically, we are experiencing the violent cruelty of anti-Semitism 
today.
  On October 7, 2023, thousands of men from Gaza invaded Israel and 
tortured, burned, and murdered more than 1,200 innocent people. These 
Hamas jihadi terrorists driven by Jew hatred subjected women and girls 
of all ages to unimaginable acts of torture, mutilation, rape--violence 
intended to dehumanize and humiliate Jewish women and girls before they 
were murdered.
  Just like the Nazis 83 years ago in the Liepaja massacre, the Hamas 
terrorists filmed their horrific acts to memorialize their unspeakable 
cruelty.
  These acts should shock the conscience of the entire world, and yet 
for too long, the world stood silent. Despite overwhelming evidence, 
some continue to minimize or deny these war crimes.
  Another Jewish woman, Sheryl Sandberg, made a film to show the world 
what happened on that terrible day, to allow the victims to tell their 
stories. Just like looking through the camera in front of Victoria's 
statue, we can all watch Sheryl's film and bear witness to the horrors 
of anti-Semitism.
  I am proud of these Jewish women who have taken action to make sure 
we do not allow these atrocities to be denied or forgotten.
  We must all take heed of the words of Elie Wiesel, which are 
inscribed on the base of Victoria's statue: ``The opposite of love is 
not hate, it is indifference.''
  As a nation, we must not be indifferent to the alarming rise of anti-
Semitism across our country and around the world--from Los Angeles to 
New York to Amsterdam to Lithuania to Israel.
  I call on my colleagues and all Americans to speak out against anti-
Semitism and hate in all its forms and take action. Let us not be 
indifferent.


                          Release Keith Siegel

  Ms. MANNING. Mr. Speaker, it has been over a year since Hamas 
launched a brutal attack on our ally Israel, slaughtering 1,200 
innocent people and taking hundreds of innocent people hostage.
  Today, the families of these hostages continue to live in unthinkable 
anguish, desperate for their loved ones to return home safely.
  Among them is the family of Keith Siegel from my home State of North 
Carolina.
  On October 7, Keith and his wife, Aviva, were kidnapped from their 
home in K'far Aza and held captive together in inhumane conditions 
underground lacking food, water, and even air.
  After 51 days, Aviva was released in a hostage exchange, but Keith, 
now 65 years old, remains in those horrific tunnels.
  We must continue to fight for the return of Keith and all 100 
hostages. We must keep them in our hearts and speak up for them.

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