The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“REMEMBRANCE OF VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H3338-H3341 on April 16, 2018.
The Department is one of the oldest in the US, focused primarily on law enforcement and the federal prison system. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, detailed wasteful expenses such as $16 muffins at conferences and board meetings.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
{time} 2030
REMEMBRANCE OF VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina
(Mr. Wilson) for 30 minutes.
General Leave
Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the topic of this Special Order, which is Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from South Carolina?
There was no objection.
Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. I am particularly grateful to be here tonight with Congressman Lee Zeldin from New York for promoting the restoration of integrity at the Department of Justice and the FBI with a second special counsel.
Today I rise in honor of the days of remembrance of victims of the Holocaust officially designated by President Donald Trump last week. President Donald Trump will always be appreciated for establishing next month the American Embassy to be relocated and established in Jerusalem.
A recent study has found that the knowledge of the atrocities that occurred during the Holocaust is waning as we get further and further removed from the horrible events. The phrase ``We Remember'' is used to emphasize the importance of remembering exactly what happened to ensure that it never happens again.
It is in this context that I stand today, not only in honor of those murdered at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust, as well as those who survived, but to continue to speak the truth about what happened there and hope that it never fades from our collective memories, to be never repeated. All citizens should tour the Holocaust Museum here in Washington to learn the shocking truth of Nazi inhumanity.
In 1933, Adolf Hitler ascended to power in Germany not through force but through an appointment to chancellor by the sitting President Paul von Hindenburg. He devised a fictional tale about the need for ethnic purity to be successful. The German people were desperate and susceptible to lies and deceptions, and, sadly, many eventually followed Hitler into the atrocities that followed.
The level of deception Hitler and the Nazis were willing to go to, to gain unilateral authority, was apparent early on. In February of 1933, just a month after Hitler was appointed chancellor, the German Reichstag parliament building was burned, and they immediately blamed it on their opponents. This allowed Hitler to take advantage of this situation and issue a decree that placed constraints on the press and banned political meetings.
By June of the same year, the Nazis declared themselves as the only legal party in Germany, and the Nazis passed a law allowing for forced sterilization of those with a genetic defect. The first openly anti-
Semitic law was passed in September 1933, prohibiting Jews from holding land 6 years before the start of World War II.
After German President Paul von Hindenburg, who appointed Hitler as chancellor out of political expediency, passed away, Hitler named himself as fuhrer, gaining the power of both chancellor and President. One of the most shocking aspects of this ascent, looking back, is that Hitler received 90 percent support from German voters who approved of his new powers.
After Hitler took complete control of Germany, the laws persecuting Jewish people escalated rapidly. One month after naming himself the fuhrer, the Nuremberg race laws were decreed. These laws banned interracial marriages between Jews and Germans and established that only those who were German or had German ancestors were able to be citizens. The rights of the Jewish people living in Germany slowly but surely dissipated without much attention from the international community; that is, until the Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, the night of November 10, 1938.
German SS agents and local citizens were encouraged to smash windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues as the local law enforcement stood by and watched. Although many Germans, especially those who saw the destruction, disapproved, Hitler was able to quell any concerns through his control of the media. This event changed the nature of the German persecution of the Jewish people from economic, political, and social to beatings, incarcerations, and murder.
By January 1939, Hitler issued the most public statement regarding his plans to the German parliament. Hitler's goal, in no uncertain terms, was ``the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.''
In addition to Hitler's domination over the Jewish people in Germany, he began to expand his empire to neighboring European nations. The hostile takeover began in Austria, though the union of the two countries had been a popular concept for decades. Therefore, there was not much resistance originally from the international community.
It took the German invasion of Poland on September 2, 1939, for Britain and France to finally declare war on Nazi Germany. The invasion occurred in collaboration with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who had a joint Nazi-Soviet pact with a secret protocol to invade Poland with Nazi and Soviet tanks providing for the partition of Poland. It would take two years for the United States to follow suit and declare war against Germany, after the surprise attack by the Axis partner Japan at Pearl Harbor.
Despite Britain and France declaring war, that did not slow the Nazis advancing across Europe. On April 9, 1940, they invaded Denmark and Norway; and on May 10, they invaded France, Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg. By June 14, the Nazis were occupying the French capital of Paris.
The start of World War II also coincided with the Nazis' increased brutality against the Jewish people. The same month that Britain and France declared war, Reinhard Heydrich issued instructions for the SS to gather Jews in ghettos. One month later, the Nazis would seal those ghettos so no one, meaning no Jewish person, could escape.
On March 26, 1941, the German Army High Command gave the Reich Main Security Office approval to initiate SS murder squads throughout the eastern front. These squads, known as the Einsatzgruppen, were responsible for murdering the intelligentsia and cultural elite in Poland. This murder squad mainly killed civilians.
Heydrich, upon inspecting the impact of the murder squads on his SS agents, decided these tactics were too costly, demoralizing, and did not kill victims quickly enough. That led the Nazis to increase their use of gas to murder the innocent Jewish people, which caused the death toll to increase exponentially.
By the end of 1941, America was drawn into the war by the surprise murderous attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, who, at this point, were part of the Axis powers, which included Germany and Italy. On December 11, after Germany declared war on the United States, President Franklin Roosevelt declared war against Germany, declaring: ``Never before has there been a greater challenge to life, liberty, and civilization.''
America then concentrated 90 percent of its resources to defeating Hitler. On January 20, 1942, the Wannsee Conference was held just outside of Berlin, where senior Nazi officials and SS met to coordinate their Final Solution. The Final Solution to the Jewish Question was the official code name for the murder of all Jews within reach, which was not limited to the European continent. This resulted in the deliberate and systematic genocide of the Jewish people.
Operation Reinhard, the deadliest phase of the Holocaust, began the introduction of extermination camps. The goal was mass extermination. This horrific Final Solution was carried out at other execution and concentration camps across Europe. Sadly, the largest was at Auschwitz. Auschwitz I was first constructed to hold Polish political prisoners, who began to arrive in May 1940. The first extermination of prisoners took place in 1941, September. Auschwitz II-Birkenau also went on to become a major site of the Nazi Final Solution.
The conditions in these concentration camps were too horrific to imagine. There was a barbaric selection process upon arrival where only those who were able-bodied and strong would survive the night. The rest were sent to gas chambers. The gas chambers were described clearly in
``The Buchenwald Report.'' An estimated 1.3 million people were sent to Auschwitz, of which at least 1.1 million people were murdered. Around 90 percent of those were Jews. Approximately one in six Jewish people killed in the Holocaust died at that camp.
Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the distinguished Congressman from Texas
(Mr. Gohmert), who represents the First District of Texas, to speak for 5 minutes.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend so much, bringing back the account of what happened. And I can remember--I majored in history in college--reading about General Eisenhower ordering American troops, Allied troops, to go gather people from the German communities near the concentration camps where so many Jews were being killed, ruthlessly killed.
It is horrific to even contemplate what went on. And Eisenhower had ordered that, apparently, they bring the community citizens and have them help clean up the concentration camps. And the reason that was given was so that they could never say these things didn't happen--and I thought at the time that really is going perhaps too far--because these people turned a blind eye to what was going on. Surely they suspected. They knew there was ash going over their communities. Surely they suspected.
But I never dreamed we would reach a day when what Eisenhower feared would occur actually came about, and that is a time when people are finding it popular to deny that the Holocaust ever happened. So I am grateful that Israel has this Yom HaShoah, the Israel Holocaust remembrance day. But it should not just be for Israel. America needs to stand with Israel.
There are those who are calling for extermination of Jews around the Earth again. It is unbelievable. It is unbelievable. It has been shocking to see anti-Semitism growing again around Europe. To me, as an American, it has been even more shocking to see growing sentiment on U.S. college campuses denying that the Holocaust ever happened. That is the ultimate irony: having institutions of what are supposed to be higher learning in the United States of America, where at one time we had the best universities, everyone wanted to come to the U.S. for universities; but now we have institutions of higher learning that are actually the epitome of dumbing down and destroying history, rewriting history, which would make them institutions of the least learning, certainly not higher education. So it is important that we take time, we remember the horrors.
I was just talking to my friend Claudia Tenney from New York about the Jewish woman who came and spoke to her seventh grade class and then, as I understood, spoke to her child's seventh grade class. And that is so important, but the Holocaust survivors, we are losing them day after day. It is up to us. I am so grateful to my friend, the good Joe Wilson, for securing this time so we could talk about the Holocaust.
The Bible makes clear that you must teach about what God has done. We would never, ever want to see another Holocaust. After the horrors of the Holocaust, that what was prophesied for thousands of years has now happened, there is an Israel; it is making, has made, the desert bloom. But we should never forget, as long as this Earth is populated by human beings, another Holocaust is possible. And the blood would be on the hands and head of everyone who has denied that it was even possible.
{time} 2045
Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Gohmert for his leadership.
We have been joined by the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Tenney), who has served our country so well on the General Assembly of New York and now here in Congress, Congresswoman Claudia Tenney.
Ms. TENNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Joe Wilson. He has been a terrific mentor for me, and I am grateful for his allowing me to recognize this really important experience.
As we are remembering, there is a really important person in my life who has inspired me in many of the things that I do, and her name was Helen Sperling. She was born in 1920. She is a Holocaust survivor. She survived a Nazi death camp.
She was actually liberated on April 18, 1945--just a couple of days away from that anniversary date. She had to be hospitalized in Germany for 3 years before she was finally able to immigrate to the United States with, eventually, her husband, who was also a Nazi survivor.
But Helen was a special person, and she was someone whom I got to know. As Congressman Gohmert just mentioned, as a student in New Hartford, New York, she was a resident of our town, and a very tiny woman, wonderfully positive and very excitable and really just a warm person.
I was a seventh grade student, and she came and spoke to our class about the Holocaust and explained to us the horrors of what happened to her and her family in Nazi Germany, and it was just so impactful. Helen basically spent her life telling this story.
As Congressman Gohmert alluded to a moment ago, this wonderful person--one day, my son, 30 years later, came back from seventh grade and said: Mom, I met this incredible woman. She spoke in my class, and she told us all about the Holocaust and the horrors that occurred there, where the Jewish people were annihilated and killed and murdered in millions, and she told us her story. And at the end of the story, I asked her if I could hug her, and she said of course.
He said he was so moved by her as well. And I just turned to him, and I said: Oh, my God, Helen Sperling is back. She is still talking about it.
Helen, sadly, died a couple of years ago, and we gave honor and tribute to her as my constituent when I was a member of the New York State Assembly.
But also, I got to meet Helen on a number of occasions afterwards. She was wonderful in speaking to Boys State, you know, the American Legion's hosted events.
I just want to read a little bit from Helen's obituary, because I think it is really important to understand this woman who survived this and really devoted her entire life to educating children and people. I just want to read a little bit from this, and here is where it started from her obituary from 2 years ago.
``The anguish of the Holocaust scarred Helen for life, and she tried to turn her pain into a positive instrument for education. In March 1967, the Annual Holocaust Lecture series was begun, and it was later named for Helen and Leon,'' her late husband. ``This annual program, endowed by the Sperlings, will continue to provide Holocaust education for many generations to come.''
That was a dream of Helen's.
``From 1968 until her death, Helen had shared her life and her Holocaust experiences with tens of thousands of people, lecturing tirelessly at schools, colleges, churches, prisons, and clubs, in the fervent hope that both young people and adults would remember, learn, and build a better, more peaceful world. She will always be remembered by her challenge to `Never Be A Bystander.'
``Helen believed that the worst part of being in the concentration camps was the feeling of being powerless. She tried to teach people never to abuse power and to protect those who could not protect themselves.
``As a result of the mutual love and respect between Helen and the generations of audiences that have heard her, Clinton and New Hartford Senior High Schools,'' in my district--and New Hartford Senior High School, which is my alma mater--``have each developed scholarship awards in her name to honor those seniors who exhibit the character that Helen believed would help make a better, more humane, and peaceful world.
``These scholarships, as well as the many other tangible gifts given by `her schools,' in her honor, touched Helen deeply. She was moved and grateful for the hundreds of lilacs planted by her friends and students in memory of her father.''
The lilacs were her symbol.
But I also want to mention something really important about Helen. I got to meet her, and actually one of the last times I got to speak with her was we were speaking together at Boys State in my district in 2012 and she got a little modern. One of the things she was handing out to the young men who were at Boys State learning how to potentially be serving our Nation as members of our military or in government, she handed out these lovely little, as you can see, one of these wristbands that are so common today. And on this wristband--this is the very wristband that was handed to me by Helen back in 2012. It says: ``Thou shall not be a bystander.''
Helen handed these out to everyone she spoke with, to remember, and to remember to stand up and not let these horrors of events like the Holocaust happen again in our time.
I just wanted to pay tribute to her tonight.
I thank Congressman Wilson for this great honor to be able to speak and to mention an outstanding member of my district and what she stood for, and that we shall not be bystanders and that we shall always remember and not let this very horrific part of human history be forgotten and make sure that it never gets repeated again.
I just want to say thank you, and may God rest her soul, Helen Sperling, an amazing inspiration to me and so many thousands of others in my community. I just want to thank you for giving me a moment to recognize the great Helen Sperling from New Hartford, New York.
Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Claudia Tenney very much for her heartfelt presentation, and we appreciate her military family.
While I am concluding, I would like to recognize a few Holocaust survivors in South Carolina. May we never forget their pain and suffering, as well as their family and friends who have become beloved citizens of the State of South Carolina.
Ben Stern, born in 1924 in Kielce, Poland. Ben spent 6 months in the Kielce ghetto, where he was beaten and threatened to be hung for leaving the ghetto to get food for his family. Then he was taken to a forced labor camp called Henrykow, after which he never saw his family again. He then was transferred to Auschwitz, where he was sorted and sent to Birkenau.
After being transferred again due to the Russians closing in, Ben was forced to participate in a death march where all those left standing at the end were murdered. He had fallen over just before those executions because he could no longer walk. Ben was later found by the American Army and rescued weighing 89 pounds but alive and liberated.
Bert Gosschalk, born in 1920 in a little village in Holland. He was a member of the resistance. After a failed resistance attempt to blow up a railway to take away Nazi's access, he and his wife were caught. Bert was then taken to the SS headquarters for questioning. There, he spent all day on his knees without food or water.
While he was being questioned at the SS headquarters, a Dutch resistance group ambushed the German police. To retaliate, the Nazis brought all the prisoners to where the Germans had been ambushed and murdered all of them. Bert came back to discover there were only seven or eight men who survived, and, thankfully, he was one.
Bluma Goldberg, born in Poland in a town called Pinczow. Bluma joined her sister at a labor camp where they stayed for 2 years making bullets, where they worked 12-hour shifts, 7 days a week.
As the Russians moved closer, Bluma was sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where disease ran rampant and everyone was covered in lice. After 3 months, Bluma was able to go with her sister Burgau, where they painted numbers on airplanes.
Renee Kolender, born in the city of Bochnia, Poland, in 1926. In 1941, Renee was taken from the Kozienice ghetto to a labor camp in a Polish town called Skarzysko. There, Renee stayed for 3 years with her mother and brother making ammunition.
As the Russians moved closer, Renee was moved to a labor camp closer to Germany where they made parts for machines that made bullets. Eventually, she was rescued by a Jewish policeman, and it was all over.
Pincus Kolender was born in the city of Bochnia, Poland, in 1926. In 1942, Pincus and his brother were take from the ghetto, where they lived for about 2 years, to Auschwitz. When Pincus arrived, he was lined up before the gate to be sorted where he was sent to a camp instead of the crematorium.
Inside the camp, his head was shaved, and he was tattooed with the number ``161253.'' Pincus described the life in the camp, of which he said: ``The hunger was also terrible. We used to search for a potato peel and fight over it. We were constantly, 24 hours a day, always hungry.'' Every few months, a selection occurred where those who looked feeble were sent to the crematorium. Eventually, Pincus was saved by General George Patton's Fifth Army.
Other survivors include: Rudy Herz, born in a very small town called Stommeln on the outskirts of Cologne, Germany, in 1925; Trude Heller, born in Vienna in 1922. She was 15 years old in March 1938 when Hitler took over Austria, and upon coming to America, she served as the First Lady with Mayor Max Heller of the beautiful city of Greenville, South Carolina.
Francine Taylor was born in Poland in 1928. Her family moved to France when she was 2 years old. They were living in Paris on June 14, 1940, when the French capital fell.
Leo Diamantstein, born in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1924.
I am grateful for this opportunity to highlight these people and this important issue during these ``Days of Remembrance,'' and I am hopeful that we will make preserving this history and telling these stories a priority.
We will never forget the lessons we have learned from the horrific tragedy in history. We must protect natural God-given rights and do all in our power to prevent these types of crimes against humanity.
Helping the world to not forget is an extraordinary artist of West Columbia, South Carolina, Mary Burkett, who has produced drawings of the murdered children of the Holocaust. These loving portraits were placed, last week, on display at the Embassy of Israel in Washington by Ambassador Ron Dermer.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________
