    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
    [April 22, 1993]
    [Pages 478-480]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Dedication of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    April 22, 1993

        Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President, Mrs. Gore, President and
    Mrs. Herzog, distinguished leaders of nations from around the world who
    have come here to be with us today, the leaders of our Congress, and the
    citizens of America, and especially to Mr. Meyerhoff and all of those
    who worked so hard to make this day possible, and even more to those who
    have spoken already on this program, whose lives and words bear eloquent
    witness to why we have come here today.
        It is my purpose on behalf of the United States to commemorate this
    magnificent museum, meeting as we do among memorials, within the sight
    of the memorial to Thomas Jefferson, the author of our freedom, near
    where Abraham Lincoln is seated, who gave his life so that our Nation
    might extend its mandate of freedom to all who live within our borders.
    We gather near the place where the legendary and recently departed
    Marian Anderson sang songs of freedom and where Martin Luther King
    summoned us all to dream and work together. Here on the town square of
    our national life, on this 50th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, at
    Eisenhower Plaza on Raoul Wallenberg Place, we dedicate the United
    States Holocaust Museum and so bind one of the darkest lessons in
    history to the hopeful soul of America.
        As we have seen already today, this museum is not for the dead alone
    nor even for the survivors who have been so beautifully represented; it
    is perhaps most of all for those of us who were not there at all, to
    learn the lessons, to deepen our memories and our humanity, and to
    transmit these lessons from generation to generation.
        The Holocaust, to be sure, transformed the entire 20th century,
    sweeping aside the Enlightenment hope that evil somehow could be per-

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    manently vanished from the face of the Earth, demonstrating there is no
    war to end all war, that the struggle against the basest tendencies of
    our nature must continue forever and ever.
        The Holocaust began when the most civilized country of its day
    unleashed unprecedented acts of cruelty and hatred, abetted by
    perversions of science, philosophy, and law. A culture, which produced
    Goethe, Schiller, and Beethoven, then brought forth Hitler and Himmler,
    the merciless hordes, who themselves were educated, as others who were
    educated stood by and did nothing. Millions died for who they were, how
    they worshiped, what they believed, and who they loved. But one people,
    the Jews, were immutably marked for total destruction. They who were
    among their nation's most patriotic citizens, whose extinction served no
    military purpose nor offered any political gain, they who threatened no
    one were slaughtered by an efficient, unrelenting bureaucracy, dedicated
    solely to a radical evil with a curiously antiseptic title: The Final
    Solution.
        The Holocaust reminds us forever that knowledge divorced from values
    can only serve to deepen the human nightmare, that a head without a
    heart is not humanity. For those of us here today representing the
    nations of the West, we must live forever with this knowledge. Even as
    our fragmentary awareness of crimes grew into indisputable facts, far
    too little was done. Before the war even started, doors to liberty were
    shut. And even after the United States and the Allies attacked Germany,
    rail lines to the camps within miles of military-significant targets
    were left undisturbed.
        Still there were, as has been noted, many deeds of singular courage
    and resistance: the Danes and the Bulgarians, men like Emmanuel
    Ringelbaum, who died after preserving in metal milk cans the history of
    the Warsaw ghetto; Janusz Korczak, who stayed with children until their
    last breaths at Treblinka; and Raoul Wallenberg, who perhaps rescued as
    many as 100,000 Hungarian Jews; and those known and those never to be
    known, who manned the thin line of righteousness, who risked and lost
    their lives to save others, accruing no advantage to themselves but
    nobly serving the larger cause of humanity.
        As the war ended, these rescuers were joined by our military forces
    who, alongside the allied armies, played the decisive role in bringing
    the Holocaust to an end. Overcoming the shock of discovery, they walked
    survivors from those dark, dark places into the sweet sunlight of
    redemption, soldiers and survivors being forever joined in history and
    humanity. This place is their place, too, for them as for us, to
    memorialize the past and steel ourselves for the challenges of tomorrow.
        We must all now frankly admit that there will come a time in the not
    too distant future when the Holocaust will pass from living reality and
    shared experience to memory and to history. To preserve this shared
    history of anguish, to keep it vivid and real so that evil can be
    combated and contained, we are here to consecrate this memorial and
    contemplate its meaning for us. For more than any other event, the
    Holocaust gave rise to the universal declaration of human rights, the
    charter of our common humanity. And it contributed, indeed made certain,
    the long overdue creation of the nation of Israel.
        Now, with the demise of communism and the rise of democracy out of
    the ashes of former Communist states, with the end of the cold war, we
    must not only rejoice in so much that is good in the world but recognize
    that not all in this new world is good. We learn again and again that
    the world has yet to run its course of animosity and violence.
        Ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia is but the most brutal and
    blatant and ever-present manifestation of what we see also with the
    oppression of the Kurds in Iraq, the abusive treatment of the Baha'i in
    Iran, the endless race-based violence in South Africa. And in many other
    places we are reminded again and again how fragile are the safeguards of
    civilization. So do the depraved and insensate bands now loose in the
    modern world. Look at the liars and the propagandists among us, the
    skinheads and the Liberty Lobby here at home, the Afrikaaners resistance
    movement in South Africa, the Radical Party of Serbia, the Russian
    blackshirts. With them we must all compete for the interpretation and
    the preservation of history, of what we know and how we should behave.
        The evil represented in this museum is incontestable. But as we are
    its witness, so must we remain its adversary in the world in which we
    live; so we must stop the fabricators of history and the bullies as
    well. Left unchallenged, they would still prey upon the powerless, and
    we must not permit that to happen again.
        To build bulwarks against this kind of evil,

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    we know there is but one path to take. It is the direction opposite that
    which produced the Holocaust; it is that which recognizes that among all
    our differences, we still cannot ever separate ourselves one from
    another. We must find in our diversity our common humanity. We must
    reaffirm that common humanity, even in the darkest and deepest of our
    own disagreements.
        Sure, there is new hope in this world. The emergence of new, vibrant
    democratic states, many of whose leaders are here today, offers a shield
    against the inhumanity we remember. And it is particularly appropriate
    that this museum is here in this magnificent city, an enduring tribute
    to democracy. It is a constant reminder of our duty to build and nurture
    the institutions of public tranquility and humanity.
        It occurs to me that some may be reluctant to come inside these
    doors because the photographs and remembrance of the past impart more
    pain than they can bear. I understand that. I walked through the museum
    on Monday night and spent more than 2 hours. But I think that our
    obligations to history and posterity alike should beckon us all inside
    these doors. It is a journey that I hope every American who comes to
    Washington will take, a journey I hope all the visitors to this city
    from abroad will make.
        I believe that this museum will touch the life of everyone who
    enters and leave everyone forever changed: a place of deep sadness and a
    sanctuary of bright hope, an ally of education against ignorance, of
    humility against arrogance, an investment in a secure future against
    whatever insanity lurks ahead. If this museum can mobilize morality,
    then those who have perished will thereby gain a measure of immortality.
        I know this is a difficult day for those we call survivors. Those of
    us born after the war cannot yet fully comprehend their sorrow or pain.
    But if our expressions are inadequate to this moment, at least may I
    share these words inscribed in the Book of Wisdom: ``The souls of the
    righteous are in the hands of God, and no torment shall touch them. In
    the eyes of fools they seem to die. Their passing away was thought to be
    an affliction, and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But
    they are in peace.''
        On this day of triumphant reunion and celebration, I hope those who
    have survived have found their peace. Our task, with God's blessing upon
    our souls and the memories of the fallen in our hearts and minds, is to
    the ceaseless struggle to preserve human rights and dignity. We are now
    strengthened and will be forever strengthened by remembrance. I pray
    that we shall prevail.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:43 p.m. at the Memorial. In his remarks,
    he referred to Chaim Herzog, President of Israel, and Harvey M.
    Meyerhoff, Chairman, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.