Biden: We must ensure the Holocaust can never be erased from our memories
Biden: “It is the shared responsibility of all people to ensure that the horrors of the Shoah can never be erased from our collective memory.”
By OMRI NAHMIASUpdated: APRIL 4, 2021 20:57US President Joe Biden speaks in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, US, March 15, 2021(photo credit: REUTERS/KEVIN LAMARQUE/FILE PHOTO)
WASHINGTON – The United States “stand(s) in solidarity with the Jewish people in America, Israel, and around the world to remember and reflect on the horrors of the Holocaust,” US President Joe Biden said in a proclamation on Sunday ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day.“We honor the memories of precious lives lost, contemplate the incomprehensible wound to our humanity, mourn for the communities broken and scattered, and embrace those who survived the Holocaust – some of whom are still with us today, continuing to embody extraordinary resilience after all these years. Having borne witness to the depths of evil, these survivors remind us of the vital refrain: ‘never again.’ The history of the Holocaust is forever seared into the history of humankind, and it is the shared responsibility of all people to ensure that the horrors of the Shoah can never be erased from our collective memory.“In order to prevent a tragedy like the Holocaust from happening again, we must share the truth of this dark period with each new generation,” the president continued. “All of us must understand the depravity that is possible when governments back policies fueled by hatred, when we dehumanize groups of people, and when ordinary people decide that it is easier to look away or go along than to speak out. Our children and grandchildren must learn where those roads lead, so that the commitment of ‘never again’ lives strongly in their hearts.“I remember learning about the horrors of the Holocaust from my father when I was growing up, and I have sought to impart that history to my own children and grandchildren in turn,” Biden said. “I have taken them on separate visits to Dachau, so that they could see for themselves what happened there, and to impress on them the urgency to speak out whenever they witness antisemitism or any form of ethnic and religious hatred, racism, homophobia, or xenophobia.“The legacy of the Holocaust must always remind us that silence in the face of such bigotry is complicity –- remembering, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, that there are moments when ‘indifference to evil is worse than evil itself.’“Those who survived the Holocaust are an inspiration to every single one of us. Yet they continue to live with the unique mental and physical scars from the unconscionable trauma of the Holocaust, with many survivors in the United States living in poverty.“When I served as vice president, I helped secure Federal funding for grants to support Holocaust survivors – but we must do more to pursue justice and dignity for survivors and their heirs. We have a moral imperative to recognize the pain survivors carry, support them, and ensure that their memories and experiences of the Holocaust are neither denied nor distorted, and that the lessons for all humanity are never forgotten.“Every child and grandchild of a survivor is a testament to resilience, and a living rebuke to those who sought to extinguish the future of the Jewish people and others who were targeted.”
