[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 20722]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   HONORING THE LATE SIMON WIESENTHAL

  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor one of the great 
promoters of tolerance in our time, Simon Wiesenthal, who we learned 
has passed away at the age of 96. Mr. Wiesenthal, who spent 4 years in 
Nazi concentration camps, dedicated his life to seeking justice for 
those who were unable to seek it for themselves. While Mr. Wiesenthal 
survived the Holocaust and was rescued by American troops in 1945, 
dozens of his family members, including his own mother, perished at the 
hands of the Nazis.
  Upon his liberation, Mr. Wiesenthal relentlessly and often 
singlehandedly tracked down over 1,100 Nazi war criminals and saw that 
they were brought to justice. Without his tenacity, such mass murderers 
as Adolf Eichmann and Franz Stangl may never have been held accountable 
for their crimes against humanity.
  But Mr. Wiesenthal's legacy is not limited to atoning for the past. 
He also knew the importance of educating future generations to ensure 
that similar atrocities would never again take place.
  He established the Simon Wiesenthal Center to foster tolerance and 
understanding. The Center, headquartered in Los Angeles but with 
offices throughout the entire world, has made great contributions to 
efforts to combat racism, anti-Semitism, terrorism and genocide. I have 
had the great privilege, as has Governor Schwarzenegger and both 
President Bushes, of visiting and working with the Wiesenthal Center 
over the years to advance their noble mission.
  Additionally, the Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance hosts 
350,000 visitors annually, including 110,000 children, vividly 
educating them on the history of the Holocaust and the importance of 
defeating bigotry and racism in our time. For as Mr. Wiesenthal himself 
once said, ``The history of man is the history of crimes, and history 
can repeat. So information is a defense. Through this, we can build, we 
must build, a defense against repetition.''
  Mr. Speaker, Simon Wiesenthal represented the best of humanity. Born 
into unspeakable tragedy, he refused to ignore his responsibility to 
those who, unlike him, did not outlive the Holocaust. His dogged 
determination was the strongest voice of the victims. Accountability 
and education, not revenge, were his aims. Mr. Wiesenthal's greatest 
lesson, Mr. Speaker, was that even out of such horror, some good can 
come.
  His message of tolerance is one that must continue to be honored, 
respected and taught. If someone who suffered so greatly can turn his 
life into a positive force for change, surely the rest of us can take 
his lesson to heart and never forget the dark past in the hope of 
building a brighter future.

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