[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6051]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           REMEMBERING YOM HASHOAH--HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, this week we commemorated Yom HaShoah, 
Holocaust Remembrance Day. People around the world gathered together in 
their communities to remember and to reflect, to mourn the dead, to pay 
tribute to the survivors, and to honor the sacrifices of the rescuers 
and liberators.
  As a Member of Congress who represents south Florida, Yom HaShoah is 
particularly meaningful for me and for my constituents as so many 
Holocaust survivors call our south Florida community home.
  I have had both the honor and the privilege to come to know many 
survivors over the years and be able to call them my friends. You know, 
you can only learn so much about the Holocaust from history books 
because the human toll, that is told by survivors.
  What is truly eye opening and what really brings things into 
perspective is sitting down with survivors or family members of 
survivors and hearing their stories. It is as heartbreaking as it is 
unimaginable to think that humanity could inflict this kind of hatred, 
this kind of evil upon fellow human beings, and it is as shameful as it 
is unconscionable that the indifference of mankind could allow such 
atrocities to occur.
  This is why it is incumbent upon us, all of us, Mr. Speaker, to mark 
Yom HaShoah each and every year and to rededicate ourselves to learning 
from the lessons of the past so we can ensure a better future free of 
such hatred, free of such intolerance.
  On Tuesday, we marked the Days of Remembrance with a beautiful and 
moving candle-lighting ceremony here in the Capitol rotunda where 
survivors lit six candles representing the 6 million Jews murdered by 
the Nazis. It was the first such commemoration since the passing of 
Elie Wiesel.
  Elie Wiesel made it his life mission to share the memories of what 
had occurred so that the world would know the truth. Elie Wiesel would 
not let anyone forget the horrors of the past because, as he said in 
his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech: ``If we forget, we are guilty, 
we are accomplices.''
  Elie was only 15 years old when he and his family were deported to 
the Auschwitz concentration camp facing near certain death. It was at 
Auschwitz where nearly 1 million Jews were murdered. Almost one out of 
every six Jews who were killed during the Holocaust were killed at 
Auschwitz.
  Today, Auschwitz serves as a stark reminder of the sins of the past, 
of the evil, of the indifference of mankind, but it also serves as an 
educational opportunity, an opportunity to bear witness.
  As Elie Wiesel said at the dedication ceremony of our United States 
Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993: ``For the dead and the living, we 
must bear witness.''
  For not only are we responsible for the memories of the dead, Mr. 
Speaker, we are also responsible for what we are doing with those 
memories. That is why, since 1988, the International March of the 
Living has brought over 250,000 participants together from over 50 
countries to march a 3-kilometer path leading from Auschwitz to 
Birkenau.
  The march is a silent tribute to all victims of the Holocaust, and as 
the International March of the Living states: It is intended to inspire 
individuals, to fight indifference, to fight racism, to fight injustice 
by witnessing the atrocities of the Holocaust.
  This past Monday, April 24, the International March of the Living 
held its annual march in Poland. And though the march is a silent 
tribute, Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to pay a vocal 
tribute to the participants of the March of the Living, as well as to 
the International March of the Living members, for their part in 
keeping alive the legacy, in keeping alive the memory of those who 
perished.
  I pay tribute to its efforts to educate, to bring together 
individuals with survivors so that they can get a better understanding 
of what blind hatred can do if left unchecked.
  And I pay tribute to the International March of the Living for its 
pledge to ``Never Again'' and to working to build a world in which we 
can all fulfill our promise of a better future free from hatred, free 
from bigotry, free from indifference to the suffering of others.

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