On the recordApril 28, 2014
I am grateful to be here tonight. Today is a significant day. It is Holocaust Remembrance Day. And the greatest ally that the United States has, Israel, had a remarkable experience that they hold every day because of the unique situation that the Jewish people have endured, and that is, the entire nation and all of the people in Israel come to a complete stop. Cars literally stop in the middle of highways. Buses literally stop in the middle of highways. Metros stop. If a pedestrian is walking on a street, kids playing in a park, they stop. A siren goes off for 2 minutes' time, and during that time every person in the nation comes to a standstill. Why? Why this extraordinary action? Because, quite simply, nothing like the history of Israel has ever happened anywhere in the annals of recorded human history. It is this: 6 million people lost their lives. They lost their lives simply because they were Jewish. They were children, they were grandparents, they were moms and dads. They were disfigured. They were disabled. They were high functioning. They weren't even necessarily in Israel. They were in countries all across primarily European areas. But 6 million died. And it is important that we never forget. That we never forget that a people were so brutally targeted that 6 million were killed virtually in silence; silence because of the devious ways in which the German regime carried out this horrific action. That is what happened about 70 years ago.…
