AUSCHWITZ IS A DEADLY
LANDMARK FOR CIVILIZATION

January 25, 2005
 

Mr. Speaker: This sixtieth anniversary of observance of the liberation of Auschwitz presents the people of all civilized nations with an opportunity to focus a searing light of exposure on one of the deadliest landmark events of human history. More than one million human beings died in this hellish extermination factory which was part of a system that murdered more than six million Jews.

As often as possible, in every way conceivable, the leaders of the present must be forced to gaze with thorough and undivided attention upon the horror of the holocaust. Auschwitz and all of the similar death camps document the levels to which civilized men can descend. No savage and primitive tribe could ever have engaged in such monumental and systematic slaughter. That these crimes were committed by one of the most scientifically advanced, well educated, culturally sophisticated, thoroughly organized nations that the world has ever seen is a fact that magnifies the need to forever study this bloody man-made tsunami.

The observance of this sixtieth anniversary is an empty, useless ceremony if it does not arouse massive worldwide anger, pity and fear. The anger must be divided not only at Hitler and the SS; but also the anger should be focused on the millions who help to maintain the poison fog racism, anti-Semitism and religious hatred. The pity levels must be raised high to envelope all of the more than six million individual souls whose opportunities to breathe and live, to develop their potential and to pursue happiness were so brutally snuffed out. The fear must be shared by us all as we contemplate our unforgivable impotence in the face of other epidemics of genocide that have been allowed since the landmark lesson of the holocaust.

Stalin and his gulags; Pol Pot and his killing fields; the Hutu intelligentsia and their exhortation to "cut the tall trees" with machete executions; all of this competition with Hitler has occurred within the last sixty years. We applaud the civilized governments of the world for drawing a line at Kosovo. But we are burdened with a great fear that more mass slaughters are coming because we still have not learned this most profound lesson of modern history.

On the occasion of this sixtieth anniversary let us remember that the trials of the major killers at Nuremberg also failed to take place, that Nazi scholars are still daring to deny the reality of the holocaust. We must remember that new statues are being contemplated for Stalin. We must also note the fact that Pol Pot died of natural causes. We must show fear in the face of our inability to advance the trials and convictions of many of the obvious architects of the genocide in Rwanda.

The lesson of history is that we must come down on the perpetrators of genocide with an uncompromising righteous wrath and trumpet the punishment throughout the earth. The message for future mass murderers with their convoluted rationale and twisted theories is that there will be swift and universally supported punishment. The message for the population that support genocide in the future must be that there is no acceptable excuse for your actions. For ignoring Auschwitz there can be no pardons, no acceptance of sentimental schemes for truth and reconciliation. For permitting their leaders to violate the most vital principles of human society the citizens must be judged and their nation must be forced pay a special debt to civilization.

 

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