Date: 1983-04-07
Speaker: PHILIP M. CRANE (republican)
Chamber: H

I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker. I proudly join my colleagues in this special order to commemorate the heroic persons. living and dead. whose lives were unalterably influenced by the Holocaust and want to compliment my distinguished colleague from New Yok for taking this special order. All American must remember the lessons of this tragic display of mans gross inhumanity to man. It is timely that many Jewish *survivors of the Holocaust have come to Washington todaythe 40th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprisingto dedicate the Holocaust Memorial Museum as a permanent site in our Nations Capital. Those who survived the Holocaust speak a common language. regardless of the diverse European nations from which they came. Only they can pass on their knowledge of the unspeakable atrocities perpetrated against millions of Jews and others by the Nazis in towns and concentration camps under German occupation. These survivors can well remember the horrible scenes which occurred in those places. Dachau. Sobibor. Treblinka. Chelmno. And Oswiecim. the quiet and unblemished town of rural Poland which. under the German name of Auschwitz. would earn world infamy as the greatest charnel house this Earth has seen. I wish I could stand here today and report that the nations of the world have learned something from that dismal experience. Sadly. this is not true. A whole new generation has matured since World War II. In too many cases these younger persons have taken freedom for granted. Some remember the Holocaust only as a page in history. Others doubt that the systematic slaughter occurred in such large proportion. Some have simply chosen to forget that the Holocaust took place at all. The ultimate tragedy is that genocide has continued since World War II in the Soviet TJnion. in Uganda. Vietnam. and Cambodia and under the auspices of several other totalitarian regimes. It has occurred on an even wider scale in the Peoples Republic of China. That this statement should come as a surprise to many is a shocking indictment of our growing ignorance of and immunity to genocidal practices. The clear lesson is that only the great democracies of the world have shown a consistent respect for the inalienable rights and sanctity of the human being. If nothing else. the memory of the Holocaust must remind all of us that peace and freedomthe goals of a selfgoverning republiccannot be gained or maintained cheaply. Our acknowledgment of this pristine truth offers Holocaust survivors comfort in knowing that their relatives and friends did not perish in vain. We share citizenship in the most humane nation the world had ever known. Eternal vigilance Is required to preserve the advancements we have made. We must be ever resistant to the totalitarian regimes which so cleverly utter vague sounding promises of goodness while continuing to act in the opposite direction. This commemoration strikes close to home with me. My brotherinlaw. Andrew B. Ross. is a Hungarian Jew by birth and a survivor of Belsen. While he had an aunt and uncle. who fled Budapest on the eve of the persecution. who survivied the war. they have since passed away leaving Andy as the sole surviving member of his family. I first met Andy in the Army. I was impressed with the thoughtfulness. consideration. courtesy. and concern he demonstrated toward othersmyself included. In the depersonalized environment of the military. these qu-"ties stood out more than ever. As I to know Andy better. I learned of his personal tragedy. "If anyone has a right to say the world owes him a living." I told him once. "it surely is you." But Andy is one of those people who gives more in this life than he takes. I asked him on one occasion what his personal beliefs were. "I believe in God." he replied. "and I believe that you should always help other people when you can and avoid hurting others to the best of your ability." With this brief statement. Andy basically summarized both Old and New Testament themes. But it has stayed with me for 30 years and is a convenient daily guide for one and all. So long as one man suffers persecution. all men do. The ongoing horrors perpetrated most especially by the Soviets against all who refuse to worship the stateJews and Christians alikemust alert us to a recognition that the terrors of the Holocaust are not dead in this world. and that we must rededicate and reconsecrate ourselves to the elimination of such inhumanity worldwide. Anything less is to forget those who perished during World War II at the hands of dehumanizing agents of the sick ideology that insists government is a substitute for God and mortal divinities should be allowed to determine the damned and the elect.