Click here to watch Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers’s Remarks

WASHINGTON, DC – In commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, this afternoon Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05) spoke on the Floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to pay homage to the nearly six million Jews who were killed by the Nazis. She stressed that as Europe faces Anti-Semitism in the 21^st century, the United States remains a model of democracy and religious freedom, and remains a nation committed to extinguishing racial hatred across the globe.

Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers’s Remarks as Prepared for Delivery:

“Mr. Speaker, it is with heavy hearts that we join together to remember one of the darkest stains on the history of the world.  Today, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we pay homage to the lives that were lost and remember the freedom that triumphed the day the death camps were liberated. On this day 70 years ago, thousands of prisoners were liberated at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp where nearly 1 million Jews lost their lives.  In all, more than six million Jews were killed by the Nazis, wiping out a part of European culture that had existed for more than a thousand years. 

“Today, Europe confronts a new wave of Anti-Semitism as we witnessed in the murders in a kosher market in Paris a few weeks ago. Our best antidote against violence is tolerance.  And the greatest answer to hatred is the diverse society we have right here in the United States, where all races and religions can live together in peace.  But the world needs not only our model of religious freedom, but also our strong military alliances that suppress racial hatred and genocide whenever it raises its ugly head.

“After Auschwitz was liberated, Jews confronted a still anti-Semitic Europe, and they made their way to Israel.  When they fought their war of independence in 1948, half their soldiers were survivors from the death camps. So today, when we remember the victims of Auschwitz, let’s also remember that it was the liberation of the survivors that helped found a new state – the state of tolerance, democracy and freedom that Israel so proudly embodies.”