Political Quotes

“I rise to salute a World War II veteran from my home State of Oregon. Today, I want to recognize the efforts of August F. "Gus" Smoorenburg, a member of the European resistance fighters who lived and struggled in Nazi occupied territories throughout the last century's largest and most destructive war. Born in Amsterdam in the 1920s, Gus was 19 years old when Germany invaded Holland, Luxembourg, and France. To stop the Germans, the Dutch tried using their own landscape, opening the country's famous dams and sluices to stop tanks and trucks filled with soldiers. After the brutal killing of thousands of civilians, including schoolchildren, the Dutch surrendered on May 15, 1940. The European resistance fighters, as they have come to be known, began as independent groups of youths clandestinely sabotaging the occupying German forces by whatever means at their disposal. Resistance groups sprang up in every Nazi-occupied country. Gradually, like-minded people banded together and worked in secret to overthrow the invaders.”