Political Quotes

“today is Yom Ha-Shoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, and I rise to honor the memory of the 6 million Jewish souls extinguished in the greatest act of organized depravity in history. There have been many barbaric regimes and there have been many other vicious campaigns of annihilation undertaken both before and after the Holocaust. Some even produced more victims. The Shoah, however, is unique and is thus deserving of special attention, not because the victims were Jews--many millions of innocent non-Jews were murdered by the Nazis--but because the Holocaust revealed a painful and abiding truth about humanity that remains with us. In squalor of the camps, in the ashes of the crematoria, and in the fires of the ovens, it was demonstrated that the norms of civilization, the boundaries of morality, and the protections of society and government are no more protection than a fragile tissue of behavior, one torn aside with shocking ease to reveal the latent bestiality in human beings. The imperative of Holocaust for us today, as legislators and participants in American government is the same for all Americans and, in truth, all humanity. That imperative is to remember. There are many reasons why: To remember all those people murdered for the crime of their birth and rededicate ourselves to preventing such a crime from being repeated. To remember that bigotry and ignorance can metastasize in politics with horrific consequences.…”