Evil: The Holocaust Revisitied 60 years later
Some excerpts from some of the speeches at Auschwitz:
Cheney
Galicia Jewish Museum
Krakow, Poland
January 2005
I remember reading General Eisenhower's account of seeing one of the Nazi death camps at the end of World War II. He wrote, and I quote: I visited every nook and cranny of the camp because I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify at first hand about these things in case it ever grew up at home the belief or the assumption that the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda. Eisenhower was one of the many who were determined to let the world know what happened, and to ensure that the evidence be kept so that the terrible truth could never be forgotten or erased. We have the preservation of memory at the camps themselves and for these last 60 years, we will have lived amongst survivors of the camps, ... Today many Holocaust survivors have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. That, I believe, is the greatest victory of all. Evil did not have the final say. You survived terror. You have let the world know the truth, and you have preserved the memory of those who perished here. ... these great evils of history were perpetuated not in some remote uncivilized part of the world, but in the very heart of the civilized world. Men without conscience are capable of any cruelty the human mind can imagine. ...
Juliusz Slowacki Theater
Krakow, Poland
January 2005
On this day in 1945, inside a prison for the innocent, liberators arrived and looked into the faces of thousands near death - while, miles beyond the camp, many thousands more were being led on a death march in the winter cold.
Inside barbed wire, and behind high walls, soldiers found "baths" that were not baths ... and hospitals meant not to heal but to kill ... and the belongings of hundreds of thousands who had vanished.
...
The story of the camps reminds us that evil is real, and must be called by its name, and must be confronted.
First Lady Bush
10th Anniversary of the Holocaust Memorial Museum
June 2003
... we will never understand the Holocaust. I thought I knew my history, but when I visited Auschwitz a few weeks ago, I realized there are things textbooks can't teach. They can't teach you how to feel when you see prayer shawls or baby shoes left by children being torn from their mothers - or prison cells with the scratch marks of attempted escape.
Bush
Auschwitz, Poland
May 2003
The sites (Auschwitz) are a sobering reminder that -- of the power of evil and the need for people to resist evil
Remarks by the President in Days of Remembrance Observance
United States Capitol
Washington, D.C.
April 2001
During the war, a Nazi guard told Simon Wiesenthal that in time no one would believe his account of what he saw. Evil on so grand a scale would seem incredible. Yet, we do not just believe, we know. We know because the evidence has been kept, the record has been preserved.
...
Their crimes show the world that evil can slip in and blend in, amid the most civilized of surroundings. In the end, only conscience can stop it, and moral discernment and decency and tolerance. These can never be assured in any time or in any society. They must always be taught.
Cheney
Galicia Jewish Museum
Krakow, Poland
January 2005
I remember reading General Eisenhower's account of seeing one of the Nazi death camps at the end of World War II. He wrote, and I quote: I visited every nook and cranny of the camp because I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify at first hand about these things in case it ever grew up at home the belief or the assumption that the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda. Eisenhower was one of the many who were determined to let the world know what happened, and to ensure that the evidence be kept so that the terrible truth could never be forgotten or erased. We have the preservation of memory at the camps themselves and for these last 60 years, we will have lived amongst survivors of the camps, ... Today many Holocaust survivors have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. That, I believe, is the greatest victory of all. Evil did not have the final say. You survived terror. You have let the world know the truth, and you have preserved the memory of those who perished here. ... these great evils of history were perpetuated not in some remote uncivilized part of the world, but in the very heart of the civilized world. Men without conscience are capable of any cruelty the human mind can imagine. ...
Juliusz Slowacki Theater
Krakow, Poland
January 2005
On this day in 1945, inside a prison for the innocent, liberators arrived and looked into the faces of thousands near death - while, miles beyond the camp, many thousands more were being led on a death march in the winter cold.
Inside barbed wire, and behind high walls, soldiers found "baths" that were not baths ... and hospitals meant not to heal but to kill ... and the belongings of hundreds of thousands who had vanished.
...
The story of the camps reminds us that evil is real, and must be called by its name, and must be confronted.
First Lady Bush
10th Anniversary of the Holocaust Memorial Museum
June 2003
... we will never understand the Holocaust. I thought I knew my history, but when I visited Auschwitz a few weeks ago, I realized there are things textbooks can't teach. They can't teach you how to feel when you see prayer shawls or baby shoes left by children being torn from their mothers - or prison cells with the scratch marks of attempted escape.
Bush
Auschwitz, Poland
May 2003
The sites (Auschwitz) are a sobering reminder that -- of the power of evil and the need for people to resist evil
Remarks by the President in Days of Remembrance Observance
United States Capitol
Washington, D.C.
April 2001
During the war, a Nazi guard told Simon Wiesenthal that in time no one would believe his account of what he saw. Evil on so grand a scale would seem incredible. Yet, we do not just believe, we know. We know because the evidence has been kept, the record has been preserved.
...
Their crimes show the world that evil can slip in and blend in, amid the most civilized of surroundings. In the end, only conscience can stop it, and moral discernment and decency and tolerance. These can never be assured in any time or in any society. They must always be taught.
posted by Jay Cline | 4:30 PM
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