Politics

Condemning the Violent Attack at the Holocaust Museum

By Karina

This afternoon, the House voted 413 to 0 to condemn the violent attack at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum yesterday and to honor the bravery and dedication of museum employees and security personnel. Officer Stephen Johns died in the line of duty–doing his job to protect those who came to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Speaker Pelosi:

In the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum ? anyone who?s visited there knows ? there is a flame that burns in remembrance to all who died in the Holocaust. It lights the room over a coffin of earth gathered from the death camps, concentration camps, sites of mass execution and ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe, and from cemeteries of American and European soldiers who fought and died to defeat Nazi Germany.

Engraved above that flame it says, from Deuteronomy (4:9): ?Only guard yourself and guard your soul carefully, lest you forget the things your eyes saw, and lest these things depart your heart all the days of your life, and you shall make them known to your children, and your children?s children.?

Today, we commit to telling our future generations the truths shared at the Holocaust Museum. This heinous act was committed at the entrance to sacred ground for us at the Holocaust Museum, and as I described, where some of the earth was gathered from.

This is a severe blow to all of us who care about these issues, and I would include in that everyone in the Congress of the United States and in our great country, and those throughout the world who promise never to forget. So we commit never to forget. And we commit to continuing our work to build a world free of hatred.

Read the resolution>>

Read Speaker Pelosi’s full remarks>>

Full post as published by The Gavel on June 11, 2009 (boomark / email).