Vice President Dick Cheney walks to place
a candle on a memorial tablet in the former Nazi concentration
camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday,
Jan. 27, 2005. Vice President Cheney attended a number of
ceremonies throughout the day, commemorating the 60th Anniversary
of the Liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration
Camp.
Vice President Dick Cheney addresses an international
forum at the Juliusz Slowacki Theatre in Krakow, Poland,
Jan. 27, 2005.
Vice President Dick Cheney, flanked by his daughter Liz Cheney, places a bouquet of flowers at the Wall of Death at the Auschwitz-1 Nazi concentration camp, near Krakow, Poland, Friday, Jan. 28, 2005.
Upon signing the memorial book at the conclusion of his visit to the Auschwitz-1 Nazi concentration camp, near Krakow, Poland,
Vice President Dick Cheney writes: "On this anniversary of liberation,
we look back with reverence and resolve: May God bless the survivors
and the souls of the lost, and may the evils committed here never again darken our world."
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Speaking at a ceremony in Poland commemorating
the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Vice
President Cheney said that the story of the Nazi death camps
reminds us that evil is real and must be confronted.
“Gathered in this place we are reminded
that such immense cruelty did not happen in a far-away,
uncivilized corner of the world, but rather in the very
heart of the civilized world,” said Cheney January
27 at an international forum in Krakow.
“Anti-Semitism may begin with words,
but rarely stops with words … and the message of intolerance
and hatred must be opposed before it turns into acts of
horror,” he said.
Following is the text of his remarks:
(begin text)
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Vice President
January 27, 2005
REMARKS BY THE VICE PRESIDENT AT THE INTERNATIONAL
FORUM "LET MY PEOPLE LIVE"
Juliusz Slowacki Theater
Krakow, Poland
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: It is my privilege
to join you today as the representative of the people of
the United States. I thank the government of Poland, and
all of those who have organized these commemorations of
the liberation of Auschwitz.
On this day in 1945, inside a prison for
the innocent, liberators arrived and looked into the faces
of thousands near death - while, miles beyond the camp,
many thousands more were being led on a death march in the
winter cold.
Inside barbed wire, and behind high walls,
soldiers found "baths" that were not baths ...
and hospitals meant not to heal but to kill ... and the
belongings of hundreds of thousands who had vanished.
In the death camps of Europe, men committed
some of the greatest wrongs that the human mind can conceive.
Yet today these are hallowed places. Auschwitz, said one
survivor, is the "largest cemetery in the world, one
without gravestones. Only the ashes of countless souls were
strewn here."
The camps were also the scene of profound
humanity and heroism. From survivors we know some of the
stories of brave resistance ... of helpless men, women and
children giving comfort to one another in their last terrible
moments ... of the righteous, being led to their deaths,
affirming to the end their faith in Almighty God.
The Holocaust occupies a single period in
history, but it is not a single event. It represents millions
of individual acts of murder. Each prisoner who arrived
had a name, and a home, and dreams for tomorrow. Each, like
you and me, was a child of God who wanted to live ... who
had every right to live ... who no man had any right to
harm.
Gathered in this place we are reminded that
such immense cruelty did not happen in a far-away, uncivilized
corner of the world, but rather in the very heart of the
civilized world. The death camps were created by men with
a high opinion of themselves - some of them well educated,
and possessed of refined manners - but without conscience.
And where there is no conscience, there is no tolerance
toward others ... no defense against evil ... and no limit
to the crimes that follow.
The story of the camps reminds us that evil
is real, and must be called by its name, and must be confronted.
We are reminded that anti-Semitism may begin with words,
but rarely stops with words ... and the message of intolerance
and hatred must be opposed before it turns into acts of
horror.
President Bush has said of the Holocaust,
"There will come a time when the eyewitnesses are gone.
That is why we are bound by conscience to remember what
happened, and to whom it happened."
At Auschwitz we bear witness to the cruelty,
and the suffering, and tragedy of a time that is still within
living memory. On this anniversary of liberation, we give
thanks for the liberators, and for all who labored to free
this continent from tyranny.
We pray that God's mercies are forever with
the souls of the departed. And we look to the future with
hope - that He may grant us the wisdom to recognize evil
in all its forms ... and give us the courage to prevent
it from ever rising again.
(end text)
