Joe Lieberman: “this month we observe the 52d anniversary of the beginning of the end of World War II, and the liberation of victims of…”

“this month we observe the 52d anniversary of the beginning of the end of World War II, and the liberation of victims of the Holocaust in Europe. Just 2 years ago, the 50th anniversary of the war's end, there were many ceremonies, memorials, books, articles, and television programs marking the events of 1945. Now, much of the world's attention seems focused on the coming millennium, and the beginning of the 21st century. But we must not allow ourselves to forget those events of the 20th century that continue to shape our lives. And we must never allow humanity to forget the awful truth of the Holocaust, for if we do, we risk unleashing the horror of that time on the world once again. The act of remembrance becomes more difficult with each passing year, for there remain fewer and fewer eyewitnesses to history. Fewer survivors of the Holocaust remain. Fewer liberators are alive to tell what they saw with their own eyes. And so it falls upon us, the children of the survivors and the liberators, the victims and the witnesses, to carry this burden into the new century, to tell our own children all we know about the horrors visited upon the world a little more than five decades ago, and to pray that what is our history remains history.”