On Int'l Holocaust Remembrance Day, US president vows to remember Holocaust through actions as well as thoughts.
By JPOST.COM STAFFUS President Barack Obama 311 (R)(photo credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)
US President Barack Obama pledged to remember the Holocaust and to fight anti-Semitism, he said on Friday."Michelle and I join people in the United States, in Israel, and across the globe as we remember the six million Jews and millions of others who were murdered at the hands of the Nazis," Obama said in a statement issued by the White House for International Holocaust Remembrance day."Together with the State of Israel, and all our friends around the world, we dedicate ourselves to giving meaning to those powerful words: 'Never Forget. Never Again,'" he said.Obama promised to keep the memories of the Holocaust alive, "not only in our thoughts, but through our actions."The US president vowed to speak the truth to Holocaust deniers, and to combat anti-Semitism: "We pledge to stand strong against all those who would commit atrocities, against the resurgence of anti-Semitism, and against hatred in all its forms."In 2009, Obama became the first US president to visit Buchenwald concentration camp. The president called the camp where an estimated 56,000 people died the "ultimate rebuke" to Holocaust deniers and skeptics. "These sites have not lost their horror with the passage of time," Obama said after seeing crematory ovens, barbed-wire fences, guard towers and the clock set at 3:15, marking the camp's liberation in the afternoon of April 11, 1945.Abigail Klein Leichman contributed to this report
