Quotes by William J. Jefferson

I am humbled as I rise today with my colleagues to honor the memories and the lives of the more than 6 million victims of Nazi hatred and aggression during the pogrom known to us as the Holocaust. I am also humbled to stand in this cathedral of freedom and honor the lives of the many heroes who fought so bravely against unimaginable odds to defeat a genocidal madman.

I have the high privilege of serving each of you in the U.S. House of Representatives. There is no better job anyone can have... because you get a chance to speak for your neighbors and your friends on the floor of the House of Representatives and the committees of the House about things that your people care about.

The Holocaust is a horror we must remember, but not only because of the dead; it is too late for them. Not only because of the survivors; it may even be too late for them. Preserving memory is a solemn responsibility, aimed at saving men and women from apathy toward evil, if not from evil itself. We must never forget.

The Nazis murdered more than 700,000 Jews in that last full year of the war, including most of the Jews of the last large community in Europe, Hungary. There, in one of the most efficient deportation and murder operations of the Holocaust, the Nazi and Hungarian regimes deported 437,000 Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau in just eight weeks and killed tens of thousands more later that year.

Today, Thursday, May 5, 2005, the people of the world memorialize Yom HaShoah - a special day of remembrance honoring the martyrs and heroes of the Holocaust. Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day that has been set aside to remember the victims of the Holocaust and to remind each of us what can happen when bigotry and hatred are not confronted.