![]() This was followed by a host on Fox News going so far as to compare Dr. In May, a group calling itself “Goy Power” showed up at a pro-Israel rally in a van carrying the message “Hitler was Right.” In November, attendees wore yellow stars to a hearing of the Kansas state legislature to discuss Covid-19 policies in the workplace. The incidents are an affront to the memory of Holocaust victims and to all who espouse to support human rights. Seventy-seven years after the end of the Second World War, we have witnessed a disturbing surge in the politicization of Holocaust imagery that has distorted and warped its memory in disgraceful ways, often tied to debates about the Covid-19 pandemic or Israeli policy. ![]() Yet as we mark this year’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I am terribly saddened by efforts to minimize the atrocities and manipulate the memory of the Holocaust for political gain here at home. And for generations to come, we will continue to defend our foundational values as a nation-freedom, equality, and dignity for all human beings.Just last week, the United Nations adopted a resolution by consensus against Holocaust denial, while Egypt commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day for the very first time, in an event sponsored by Cairo’s US embassy and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. We will face down the hate and the lies that carry in them the terrifying echoes of one of the worst chapters in human history. On International Holocaust Remembrance Day and every day, the United States stands with Holocaust victims, their families, and their descendants. And to mark this day of remembrance, the Second Gentleman of the United States, Douglas Emhoff, is participating in a commemoration ceremony at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland, and will be visiting Berlin, Germany to coordinate international efforts to combat antisemitism. We continue to support Holocaust survivors to ensure they can live the rest of their lives with dignity and security. We’ve secured the largest increase in funding ever for the physical security of non-profits-including synagogues and Jewish Community Centers. We are developing a national strategy to fight antisemitism. ![]() We appointed the first Ambassador-level Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. Working with partners around the country, we held a historic White House Summit on combating hate-fueled violence. That is exactly what my Administration is doing. Together, we must affirm, over and over, that hate has no safe harbor in America. And each of us must speak out against this poison. ![]() It goes against everything we value as Americans. And today, across our country, we are seeing swastikas on cars, antisemitic banners on bridges, verbal and physical attacks against Jewish businesses and Jewish Americans – even Holocaust denialism. It only hides-waiting to reemerge whenever it is given just a little bit of oxygen. Sadly, we have seen over and over again that hate never goes away. Seeing neo-Nazis and white nationalists march from the shadows in Charlottesville in 2017, spewing the same antisemitic bile we heard in the 1930s in Europe, drove me to run for president. It’s a lesson I’ve passed on to my own children and grandchildren by taking them to Dachau to understand for themselves the depths of this evil-and the complicity of those who knew what was happening, yet said nothing. “Never again” was a promise my father first instilled in me at our family dinner table, educating me and my siblings about the horrors of the Shoah. As we join nations around the world in bearing witness to this dark chapter in our shared history, we also honor survivors and their stories-pledging to always remember, and to keep faith with that sacred vow: “never again.” Tomorrow, Jill and I will pause to mourn the six million Jews who were systematically and savagely murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust - and to grieve the Roma and Sinti, Slavs, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and political dissidents who were also killed.
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