For Immediate Release
April 23, 2009
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT THE HOLOCAUST DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
CEREMONY
United States
Washington
, D.C. Capitol
12:04 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Please be seated. Thank you very much. To
Sara
Bloomfield,
for the wonderful introduction and the outstanding work she's
doing; to Fred Zeidman; Joel Geiderman; Mr. Wiesel -- thank you for your
wisdom and your witness; Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Senator Dick Durbin;
members
of Congress; our good friend the Ambassador of Israel; members of the
United
States Holocaust Memorial Council; and most importantly, the survivors
and
rescuers and their families who are here today. It is a great honor for
me
to be here, and I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to address you
briefly.
We gather today to mourn the loss of so many lives, and celebrate those
who
saved them; honor those who survived, and contemplate the obligations
of the
living.
It is the grimmest of ironies that one of the most savage, barbaric
acts of
evil in history began in one of the most modernized societies of its
time,
where so many markers of human progress became tools of human
depravity:
science that can heal used to kill; education that can enlighten used
to
rationalize away basic moral impulses; the bureaucracy that sustains
modern
life used as the machinery of mass death -- a ruthless, chillingly
efficient
system where many were responsible for the killing, but few got actual
blood
on their hands.
While the uniqueness of the Holocaust in scope and in method is truly
astounding, the Holocaust was driven by many of the same forces that
have
fueled atrocities throughout history: the scapegoating that leads to
hatred
and blinds us to our common humanity; the justifications that replace
conscience and allow cruelty to spread; the willingness of those who
are
neither perpetrators nor victims to accept the assigned role of
bystander,
believing the lie that good
people are ever powerless or alone, the fiction
that we do not have a choice.
But while we are here today to bear witness to the human capacity to
destroy, we are also here to pay tribute to the human impulse to save.
In
the moral accounting of the Holocaust, as we reckon with numbers like 6
million, as we recall the horror of numbers etched into arms, we also
factor
in numbers like these: 7,200 -- the number of Danish
Jews ferried to safety,
many of whom later returned home to find the neighbors who rescued them
had
also faithfully tended their homes and businesses and belongings while
they
were gone.
We remember the number five -- the five righteous men and women who join
us
today from Poland
. We are awed by your acts of courage and conscience. And
your presence today compels each of us to ask ourselves whether we
would
have done what you did. We can only hope that the answer is yes.
We also remember the number 5,000 -- the number of Jews rescued by the
villagers of Le Chambon
, France -- one
life saved for each of its 5,000
residents. Not a single Jew who came there was turned away, or turned
in.
But it was not until decades later that the villagers spoke of what
they had
done -- and even then, only reluctantly. The author of a book on the
rescue
found that those he interviewed were baffled by his interest. "How
could you
call us 'good'?" they said. "We were doing what had to be
done."
That is the question of the righteous -- those who would do
extraordinary
good at extraordinary risk not for affirmation or acclaim or to advance
their own interests, but because it is what must be done. They remind
us
that no one is born a savior or a murderer -- these are choices we each
have
the power to make. They teach us that no one can make us into
bystanders
without our consent, and that we are never truly alone -- that if we
have
the courage to heed that "still, small voice" within us, we
can form a
minyan for righteousness that can span a village, even a nation.
Their legacy is our inheritance. And the question is, how do we honor
and
preserve it? How do we ensure that "never again" isn't an
empty slogan, or
merely an aspiration, but also a call to action?
I believe we start by doing
what we are doing today -- by bearing witness,
by fighting the silence that is evil's greatest co-conspirator.
In the face of horrors that defy comprehension, the impulse to silence
is
understandable. My own great uncle returned from his service in World
War II
in a state of shock, saying little, alone with painful memories that
would
not leave his head. He went up into the attic, according to the stories
that
I've heard, and wouldn't come down for six months. He was one of the
liberators -- someone who at a very tender age had seen the
unimaginable.
And so some of the liberators who are here today honor us with their
presence -- all of whom we honor for their extraordinary service. My
great
uncle was part of the 89th Infantry Division -- the first Americans to
reach
a Nazi concentration camp. And they liberated Ohrdruf, part of Buchenwald ,
where tens of thousands had perished.
The story goes that when the Americans marched in, they discovered the
starving survivors and the piles of dead bodies. And General Eisenhower
made
a decision. He ordered Germans from the nearby town to tour the camp,
so
they could see what had been done in their name. And he ordered
American
troops to tour the camp, so they could see the evil they were fighting
against. Then he invited congressmen and journalists to bear witness.
And he
ordered that photographs and films be made. Some of us have seen those
same
images, whether in the Holocaust
Museum or when I visited
Yad Vashem, and
they never leave you. Eisenhower said that he wanted "to be in a
position to
give firsthand evidence of these things, if ever, in the future, there
develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to
propaganda."
Eisenhower understood the danger of silence. He understood that if no
one
knew what had happened, that would be yet another atrocity -- and it
would
be the perpetrators' ultimate triumph.
What Eisenhower did to record these crimes for history is what we are
doing
here today. That's what Elie Wiesel and the survivors we honor here do
by
fighting to make their memories part of our collective memory. That's
what
the Holocaust
Museum does every day on
our National Mall, the place where we
display for the world our triumphs and failures and the lessons we've
learned from our history. It's the very opposite of silence.
But we must also remember that bearing witness is not the end of our
obligation -- it's just the beginning. We know that evil has yet to run
its
course on Earth. We've seen it in this century in the mass graves and
the
ashes of villages burned to the ground, and children used as soldiers
and
rape used as a weapon of war. To this day, there are those who insist
the
Holocaust never happened; who perpetrate every form of intolerance --
racism
and anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, and more -- hatred
that
degrades its victim and diminishes us all.
Today, and every day, we have an opportunity, as well as an obligation,
to
confront these scourges -- to fight the impulse to turn the channel
when we
see images that disturb us, or wrap ourselves in the false comfort that
others' sufferings are not our own. Instead we have the opportunity to
make
a habit of empathy; to recognize ourselves in each other; to commit
ourselves to resisting injustice and intolerance and indifference in
whatever forms they may take -- whether confronting those who tell lies
about history, or doing everything we can to prevent and end atrocities
like
those that took place in Rwanda,
those taking place in Darfur. That is my
commitment as President. I hope that is yours, as well.
It will not be easy. At times, fulfilling these obligations require
self-reflection. But in the final analysis, I believe
history gives us cause
for hope rather than despair -- the hope of a chosen people who have
overcome oppression since the days of Exodus; of the nation of Israel rising
from the destruction of the Holocaust; of the strong and enduring bonds
between our nations.
It is the hope, too, of those who not only survived, but chose to live,
teaching us the meaning of courage and resilience and dignity. I'm
thinking
today of a study conducted after the war that found that Holocaust
survivors
living in America
actually had a higher birthrate than American Jews. What a
stunning act of faith -- to bring a child in a world that has shown you
so
much cruelty; to believe
that no matter what you have endured, or how much
you have lost, in the end, you have a duty to life.
We find cause for hope as well in Protestant and Catholic children
attending
school together in Northern
Ireland; in Hutus and Tutsis living side by
side, forgiving neighbors who have done the unforgivable; in a movement
to
save Darfur that has thousands of high
school and college chapters in 25
countries, and brought 70,000 people to the Washington Mall -- people
of
every age and faith and background and race united in common cause with
suffering brothers and sisters halfway around the world.
Those numbers can be our future -- our fellow citizens of the world
showing
us how to make the journey from oppression to survival, from witness to
resistance, and ultimately to reconciliation. That is what we mean when
we
say "never again."
So today, during this season when we celebrate liberation,
resurrection, and
the possibility of redemption, may each of us renew our resolve to do
what
must be done. And may we strive each day, both individually and as a
nation,
to be among the righteous.
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America
