María Elvira Salazar: “I rise today to honor Simon Wiesenthal, a remarkable man, a Holocaust survivor, who dedicated his life to the pursuit of…”

“I rise today to honor Simon Wiesenthal, a remarkable man, a Holocaust survivor, who dedicated his life to the pursuit of justice and worked to prevent anti-Semitism and prejudice of all kinds. After surviving imprisonment at five German concentration camps and escaping death several times, Mr. Wiesenthal continued to remember the 6 million people who lost their lives during the Holocaust by working to bring over 1,100 war criminals to justice. He pursued justice, not revenge. He demanded public trials, not secret executions. He made sure society would remember those crimes against humanity so that future purveyors of ethnic cleansing would know that they could never escape retribution. Mr. Wiesenthal earned the respect of those throughout the world, having many honors and awards bestowed upon him. He received decorations from the Austrian and French resistance movements, the Dutch Freedom Medal, the Luxembourg Freedom Medal, the United Nations League for the Help of Refugees Award, the French Legion of Honor and the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal which was presented to him by President James Carter in 1980. Mr. Wiesenthal never questioned giving up his prewar trade of architecture. In a New York Times article in 1964, Mr. Wiesenthal described attending Sabbath services with a fellow camp survivor who had become a wealthy jeweler. The man asked why Wiesenthal had not resumed architecture--his prewar trade--for it would have made him rich.…”