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Holocaust Remembrance Day

  • Hon. Benjamin Cardin
    US












House of Representative

109th Congress, First Session

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day, which memorializes the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis during their campaign of genocide in World War II. We mourn the innocent lives lost and vibrant communities destroyed while the world shamefully stood silent, and honor those heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto who faced certain death when they refused to submit to the Nazi’s planned extermination of their community.

 

To this day, Mr. Speaker, many European countries have failed to right the past wrongs of the Holocaust by failing to adequately redress the wrongful confiscation of property by the Nazi and communist regimes. These seizures took place over decades; they were part of the modus operandi of repressive, totalitarian regimes; and they affected millions of people. The passage of time, border changes, and population shifts are only a few of the things that make the wrongful property seizures of the past such difficult problems to address today.

 

While I recognize that many obstacles stand in the way of righting these past wrongs, I do not believe that these challenges make property restitution or compensation impossible. On the contrary, I believe much more should have been done–and can still be done now–while our elderly Holocaust survivors are still living.

 

Today I also want to sound the alarm about a disturbing trend that Jews face today: a rising tide of anti-Semitism throughout the world.

 

I serve as the Ranking Member of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), commonly known as the Helsinki Commission. Last year I traveled as part of the U.S. Delegation, with former Secretary of State Colin Powell, to attend a special conference in Berlin addressing anti-Semitism, held under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The OSCE is a 55-nation regional security organization which promotes democracy and human rights in Europe, Central Asia, and North America.

 

Before traveling to Berlin, I made a point to visit Auschwitz for the first time. I was shocked and stunned to see how efficient the Nazi operation was: they wanted to maximize the number of individuals that could be killed.

 

Seeing the remains of that factory of intolerance, hate and death, it reaffirmed how we must continually stress the importance of advancing understanding throughout the OSCE region and the entire world. We must tirelessly work to build understanding and respect between different communities to prevent future acts of prejudice and injustice.

 

At the Berlin Conference, I had the privilege of participating as a member of the U.S. delegation, and I gave the official U.S. statement in the session on tolerance. The meeting ended with the issuance of the Berlin Declaration of Action.

 

The Berlin Declaration laid out a number of specific steps for states to take to combat the rising tide of anti-Semitism, including: striving to ensure that their legal systems foster a safe environment free from anti-Semitic harassment, violence or discrimination; promoting educational programs; promoting remembrance of the Holocaust, and the importance of respecting all ethnic and religious groups; combating hate crimes, which can be fueled by racist and anti-Semitic propaganda on the Internet; encouraging and supporting international organizations and NGO’s; and encouraging the development of best practices between law enforcement and educational institutions.

 

As we commemorate Yom Hashoah, let us honor the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust by pledging to fight intolerance, hate crimes, and violence in our community and around the world. We shall never be silent again.

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Articles

Helsinki Commission Advances Human Rights, Demands f...

Oct 19, 2023

By Shannon Simrell, Senior Policy Advisor Between October 2-13, 11 Helsinki Commission staff joined approximately 1,400 representatives of OSCE participating States (pS) and civil society representatives in Warsaw, Poland in an annual review of the human rights records of OSCE States. U.S. leadership highlighted demands for accountability from Russia and Belarus for their human rights […]

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Articles

United States Demonstrates Global Leadership on Ukra...

Jul 14, 2023

The Helsinki Commission’s four senior leaders helmed the United States’ bicameral, bipartisan delegation to the 30th Annual Session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly last week in Vancouver, Canada. Co-Chairman Senator Ben Cardin (MD), serving as Head of Delegation, was joined by Chairman Joe Wilson (SC-02) as Deputy Head of Delegation as well as Ranking Members […]

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Hearings

The Alarming Rise in Antisemitism and Its Threat to ...

Dec 13, 2022

In response to a rise in antisemitism in the United States and abroad, the Helsinki Commission held a hearing on December 13, 2022, featuring experts on preventing and combatting it. Witnesses testified about current development and how best to respond, as well as reinforced the important role of multilateral cooperation. In an increasingly global world […]

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Press Releases

CO-CHAIRMAN COHEN APPOINTED AS OSCE PARLIAMENTARY AS...

Jul 21, 2022

WASHINGTON—Margareta Cederfelt, President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA), has appointed Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Rep. Steve Cohen (TN-09) as the first-ever OSCE PA Special Representative on Political Prisoners. “I welcome the chance to serve as the voice of political prisoners across the OSCE region,” said Co-Chairman Cohen. “Every day, we witness more political arrests of […]

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Digests

Helsinki Commission Digital Digest May 2022

Jun 01, 2022

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Press Releases

Co-Chairman Cohen Condemns Lavrov’s Antisemitic Comm...

May 03, 2022

WASHINGTON—In response to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s recent antisemitic comments regarding Ukraine’s president and the people of Ukraine more generally, Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Rep. Steve Cohen (TN-09) issued the following statement: “In a despicable attempt to justify Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, including well-documented indiscriminate murders of civilians, including children; torture; and rape of […]

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Articles

Following in the Footsteps of Tsar Nicholas II

Apr 27, 2022

As Vladimir Putin attempts to turn back the clock to the Russian Empire of the pre-Soviet era, he also adopts a tool of political manipulation used in Imperial Russia—fostering violent extremist organizations as a means to a political end. Tsar Nicholas II used this technique with terrorist organizations like the Union of the Russian People […]

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Articles

Debunking “Denazification”

Apr 21, 2022

By Worth Talley, Max Kampelman Fellow​ On February 24, 2022, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” to “demilitarize and denazify” Ukraine—in reality, a Russian invasion designed to subjugate the democratic, peaceful people of Ukraine. When the news broke, Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Rep. Steve Cohen immediately decried the statement. “Like Mr. Zelensky, I […]

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In the News

Lawmakers strike bipartisan note to condemn Putin, c...

Feb 24, 2022

In a show of unity, Republican and Democratic lawmakers swiftly condemned Russia’s military attack against Ukraine and vowed to inflict economic pain on President Vladimir Putin by imposing a torrent of punishing new sanctions. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said she wants Russia cut off from the SWIFT international banking system. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called on international law enforcement […]

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Articles

Chairman Cardin, OSCE participating States Commit to...

Feb 15, 2022

By Ryn Hintz, Paulina Kanburiyan, and Worth Talley, Max Kampelman Fellows, and Shannon Simrell, Representative of the Helsinki Commission to the U.S. Mission to the OSCE On February 7 – 8, 2022, the OSCE’s Polish Chair-in-Office organized a high-level conference in Warsaw on Combating Anti-Semitism in the OSCE Region with the support of OSCE’s Office […]

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Digests

Helsinki Commission Digital Digest January 2022

Jan 31, 2022

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Press Releases

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Cardin a...

Jan 27, 2022

WASHINGTON—On the 77th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau in Nazi-occupied Poland, which is designated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, U.S. Helsinki Commission Chairman Sen. Ben Cardin (MD) and Co-Chairman Rep. Steve Cohen (TN-09) issued the following statement on the recent spate of antisemitic activity across the United States: “We are extremely alarmed by […]

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