[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 9]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 12567]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               CONCERNING RISE IN ANTI-SEMITISM IN EUROPE

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. MICHAEL E. CAPUANO

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 9, 2002

  Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the House on its 
unanimous support of H. Res. 393, Concerning the rise in Anti-Semitism 
in Europe.
  Last month ground was broken in Boston at our Holocaust Memorial for 
a Liberators' Memorial. Survivors had long urged that tribute be paid 
to the American and Allied soldiers who fought and died to defeat the 
Third Reich. It is a fitting memorial and it inspires us to defend 
life, liberty, and justice for all persons.
  I am troubled, however, that it has become necessary to defend human 
dignity and religious liberty in Europe, in Western Europe, in the 
twenty-first century. Anti-Semitic outrages have taken place in many 
countries in the European Union. Some have been shameful, like the 
desecration of cemeteries and synagogues. Some have been brutal 
assaults that maimed or blinded their victims. Some have been tragedies 
averted: Molotov cocktails tossed at schools or synagogues that failed 
to ignite the buildings. We should not trivialize the horrors of the 
past by foolish comparisons. These are not attempts at systematic 
genocide.
  Nonetheless, bigotry cannot be too often or too forcefully condemned. 
This resolution calls on the governments of Europe to protect their 
Jewish citizens and to promote understanding and reconciliation among 
all persons. Such moral leadership is essential and, sadly, it has been 
lacking.
  The political geography of these attacks has been particularly 
disturbing. In the first four months of this year, forty-three anti-
Semitic episodes were reported in France. In the same period, Germany 
had nine and Ukraine, where the Babi Yar massacre took place, five. In 
Moldova, close to the anniversary of the 1903 Kishinev pogrom, there 
was only one. In Slovakia also, only one: gravestones defaced on 
Hitler's birthday.
  France taught Europe to think in terms of liberty and equality. Its 
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen proclaimed: ``Men are 
born and remain free and equal in rights.'' Its revolutionary 
traditions shaped the Universal Declaration of Human Rights whose first 
article reads: ``All human beings are born free and equal in dignity 
and rights.'' That important moral voice needs to be heard once more.
  When France was convulsed over an injustice done to one Jewish 
officer, Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, Emile Zola wrote a Letter to France: 
``your most illustrious children have fought . . . given their 
intelligence and their blood to fight intolerance . . . return to 
yourself, find yourself once more.'' I ask that France heed Zola now.
  No nation is without prejudice. We all fall short of perfect 
civility. None of us, unfailingly, treats all our fellow citizens as we 
should. It is essential, nonetheless, that all democracies invoke our 
shared principles.
  I know that every criticism of United States policy is not an 
expression of ``anti-Americanism.'' Nor should this resolution been 
seen as anti-European. In condemning anti-Semitism, we remind European 
democracies of their own ideals.

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