Scott Fitzgerald: “I rise to speak about the Holocaust Victims Tax Fairness amendment, No. 670, to H.R. 1836, which I offered last…”

“I rise to speak about the Holocaust Victims Tax Fairness amendment, No. 670, to H.R. 1836, which I offered last Thursday, and which was approved by the Senate yesterday by voice vote. This year we mark the 56th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust. There are as many as 10,000 Holocaust survivors in my home state of Illinois, and over 100,000 in the entire United States, with an average age over 80. It is imperative that Congress act as soon as possible to prevent the federal government from attempting to tax any restitution obtained by Holocaust survivors and their families because of their persecution by the Nazis. Holocaust survivors and their families have lived through unspeakable horrors. Three weeks ago, I attended a Holocaust Memorial Service at a synagogue in Skokie, Illinois. After the formal proceedings were over, I spoke with a number of survivors of concentration camps, and heard what they were able to tell me about their dreadful experiences. One survivor of Auschwitz told me things she had never told her children. Why? Because I was a United States Senator, and she felt she had to tell me so that the Holocaust would never be forgotten, even though remembering these horrors caused her indescribable pain.”