Political Quotes

“I am honored to follow that very eloquent speech by my colleague from Colorado and to be followed on the floor by our colleague from Massachusetts. We are here today with stories. Every one of us has a story going back one generation, maybe two or three, maybe five or ten, but we all have an immigrant story. Most of those immigrant stories are about people coming here to seek hope, opportunity, and, yes, safety; to escape violence and persecution; to come here for refuge. I met one of those refugees over this weekend in West Hartford at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony. Abby Weiner is a Romanian Jew who survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald but lost his parents there. He was honored by Voices of Hope at this Holocaust remembrance ceremony at a synagogue in West Hartford, attended by 500, 700 people. There was a massive outpouring of support for him and for the values that are represented by people who come here as immigrants fleeing persecution and violence, as he did in Nazi Germany. He said: The words came before the bullets and gas chambers. The words of Nazi Germany came before the bullets and gas chambers. Words have consequences. Edicts and orders have consequences. When I spoke, I told my own story--a proud story of my father, who also came here from Nazi Germany in 1935. He was 17 years old. He spoke virtually no English, he had not much more than the shirt on his back, and he knew almost no one.…”