Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Mike Johnson (LA-04)
WASHINGTON — Speaker Johnson today delivered remarks at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s National Commemoration of the Days of Remembrance in the U.S. Capitol. During the ceremony, Speaker Johnson presented the Congressional Gold Medal to the family of Benjamin Ferencz, a U.S. Army soldier who was among the first outsiders to witness the horrors of Nazi concentration camps and later prosecuted Nazis during the Nuremburg trials.
Speaker Johnson was joined by Leader Schumer, Leader Jeffries, Senator Gillibrand, Rep. Wilson, and Rep. Frankel. Members of Benjamin Ferencz’s family accepted the Congressional Gold Medal on his behalf.
“Today, the work is even more important than ever, not only because those who personally witness this tragedy grow fewer in number each year, but because denying and distorting the truth of the Holocaust has become something once again that is tolerated and, in some cases, even defended on college campuses,” Speaker Johnson said.
Watch Speaker Johnson’s remarks here.
Below are Speaker Johnson’s remarks as delivered:
Well, good morning to everyone. To the Members of Congress, dignitaries, all of our distinguished guests, most importantly the 30 survivors who are with us today, welcome to the United States Capitol. It is good to see you all.
It is our great honor to join you on this solemn occasion. We gather each year during these Days of Remembrance to honor the blessed memories of 6 million Jewish men, women, and children who were viciously murdered in one of the darkest hours of human history. Today, we recommit to preserving their stories and the stories of countless other innocent victims who suffered the brutality of the Holocaust. Congress takes this mandate very seriously, and we also know that an annual ceremony is just not sufficient.
The work of keeping these lives from being forgotten never truly ends, and we all know that, and that’s why we’re very grateful to the Holocaust Museum, Director Sara Bloomfield, and all of their essential work to ensure this generation of Americans bears witness and always will.
It’s been said that the Holocaust is not merely a study in history, but a study in human nature.
In the span of a few years, the world witnessed the grim display of man’s worst impulses, but also our capacity for profound good and decency. We saw the good in the families who carved out hiding places beneath their floorboards. Families like the Strobos and the Mulders who sheltered hundreds of Jewish refugees in their own homes at the risk of their own lives.
We saw it in Malvina from Slovakia, who with her mother and sisters smuggled food and letters through the barbed wire of the Nazi concentration camp just steps from their home. These portraits of courage and selflessness remind us that even in the darkest hour, light can always find a way through. And yet still the Holocaust exists on such a scale that today we’re often left with more questions than answers.
We know the questions well. How could this have happened? How did the greatest crime against humanity unfold in broad daylight before the eyes of neighbors and entire nations?
And what brings a person to maim and murder children, to lead a mother in her infant to their certain death?
Too often we’ve let these questions go unanswered, intoning a kind of condemnation that’s become, in some ways, routine. It was “incomprehensible,” we hear so often. These were “unthinkable” atrocities. It’s all true. But the truth is, the real truth, is that we must think about these things. We must try and comprehend it so that that evil can be directly confronted. We owe that to the survivors in this room and to future generations who hope to prevent such absolute evil from ever prevailing again.
Today, the work is even more important than ever, not only because those who personally witnessed this tragedy grow fewer in number each year, but because denying and distorting the truth of the Holocaust has become something once again that is tolerated and, in some cases, even defended.
On college campuses, leaders of once respectable institutions have excused hateful ideas as “context.” The flags of radical Islamic terrorist groups have become commonplace on campus quadrangles. And safe spaces are reserved not for the Jewish students threatened by physical violence on these campuses, but for those who chant “from the river to the sea” and “long live Hamas.” What’s become quite clear is that a basic comprehension of history and geography is in short supply on America’s college campuses.
These are dangerous ideologies with dangerous consequences, and we cannot forget that, and we have to speak to this problem directly. As the memory of the Holocaust fades, I’m often reminded of the famous admonition of our great President, Abraham Lincoln. He said famously, “The philosophy of the school room in one generation becomes the philosophy of government in the next.”
We know that that is true. And because it is true, it requires us to properly educate the next generation, to correct those who deny the facts of the Holocaust or October 7th, and protect our Jewish brothers and sisters. It means having the courage and the moral clarity to say that denying the Holocaust is not a difference of opinion. It is a lie, and it’s a lie with serious consequences. And it means standing up for what’s right and speaking out against what’s wrong, even when those opinions, those facts, may not be as popular as they once were.
We’ve seen what happens when good people stay silent in the face of evil and this generation of leaders will not make that mistake again. No one understood this more than the man who we honor today, Benjamin Ferencz.
As a war crimes investigator during World War II, Ben was among the first outsiders to witness and record the horrors of Nazi labor and concentration camps. One of his first experiences was at Buchenwald. He recalled in vivid detail, the hungry reduced to scavenging for scraps and the countless bodies that lay like firewood, piled at the foot of furnaces that scattered the camps.
In records that Nazis meticulously kept, he uncovered the horrific scale of the crimes. Recordings like this: In Folder 119, dated September 1939, it was written: over 33,000 Jewish men, women, and children murdered in just two days. That was the massacre at Babi Yar. Folder 84, March 1942. It said there: 91,000 individuals killed by Task Force D. Another folder, Folder 111. It said: 55,000 Jews murdered in the past 10 weeks.
Folder after folder, like this, the extermination of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives all recorded with bookkeeper-like precision. By the time Ben had finished, he had personally uncovered evidence of more than one million deaths.
As the Nuremberg trials were reaching their conclusion, Ben went to his supervisor and pleaded to add just one more case. And his persistence won out. At only 27 years of age, the youngest prosecutor at Nuremberg, Ben delivered the opening statement in what would become the largest murder trial in human history.
But Ben’s pursuit of justice did not end there. His work to investigate and prosecute these crimes led in no small part to the establishment of an international system of justice. And for the rest of his long life, all 103 blessed years of it, Ben worked just as tirelessly to protect the victims of atrocity and to defend the rule of law.
Though Ben passed away three years ago, today the country he loved and served will bestow upon him the recognition he has long been due. The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian honor that Congress can bestow upon anyone. And today we’re proud to confer that great honor on Benjamin Ferencz, for his life of servant leadership and his courage in the face of evil.
Ben spent his life answering the hardest questions and facing the most difficult truths. And today, let us hope Ben’s example can inspire all of us to do the same. To the Ferencz family, America will always remember your late beloved husband, father, and grandfather as a true American hero. May God bless Ben’s extraordinary legacy. May God bless the survivors among us, and may God bless you all.
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