Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank the distinguished ranking member of the energy committee for yielding me some time this evening. I am not here for the purposes of legislation we have been debating; I am here to take time on the Senate floor on an occasion that I think is incredibly important to recollect, to commemorate, and to talk about. Seventy years ago today a Soviet soldier, Ivan Martynushkin, arrived with his unit at the death camp at Auschwitz, and he said in an interview that he was instantly struck by the silence, the smell of ashes, and the emptiness. But as they entered the gates, Ivan and his unit were unaware of the atrocities, the war crimes that were to come to light over time. Today I rise in memory of the 1.1 million persons who perished there, 90 percent of them Jews. I rise in recognition of 1.1 million lost dreams, lost hopes, the lost wisdom of 1.1 million that will never be shared, never be known, and the lost potential of a generation that perished in that camp between 1940 and 1945. Ivan Martynushkin and his unit entered the camp thinking there would be a Nazi ambush, and then they noticed people behind barbed wire. ``It was hard to watch them,'' he said. ``I remember their faces, especially their eyes, which betrayed their ordeal.'' Ivan didn't know that the Nazis had evacuated another 58,000 prisoners 10 days earlier or the 6 million who were killed in camps across Europe.…”