[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 41, Number 4 (Monday, January 31, 2005)]
[Pages 83-84]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
<R04>
Proclamation 7865--60th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Auschwitz
Concentration Camp, 2005
January 25, 2005
By the President of the United States
of America
A Proclamation
At the Auschwitz concentration camp, evil found willing servants and
innocent victims. For almost 5 years, Auschwitz was a factory for murder
where more than a million lives were taken. It is a sobering reminder of
the power of evil and the need for people to oppose evil wherever it
exists. It is a reminder
[[Page 84]]
that when we find anti-Semitism, we must come together to fight it.
In places like Auschwitz, evidence of the horror of the Holocaust
has been preserved to help the world remember the past. We must never
forget the cruelty of the guilty and the courage of the victims at
Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.
During the Holocaust, evil was systematic in its implementation and
deliberate in its destruction. The 60th anniversary of the liberation of
Auschwitz is an opportunity to pass on the stories and lessons of the
Holocaust to future generations. The history of the Holocaust
demonstrates that evil is real, but hope endures.
Now, Therefore, I, George W. Bush, President of the United States of
America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and
laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 27, 2005, as the
60th anniversary of the Liberation of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
I call upon all Americans to observe this occasion with appropriate
ceremonies and programs to honor the victims of Auschwitz and the
Holocaust. May God bless their memory and their families, and may we
always remember.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-fifth
day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand five, and of the
Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-
ninth.
George W. Bush
[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 9:58 a.m., January 27,
2005]
Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on January
31.