Remarks by Ambassador Ron Dermer at the Holocaust Remembrance Memorial, The Capitol, April 30, 2014
Chairman Bernstein, Secretary Lew, Members of Congress, my diplomatic colleagues,World War II veterans, and above all the survivors and their families who are here with us today.
It is a great honor for me to stand here representing the one and only Jewish state.
Every year in Israel, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, a siren blares.
Millions stand in silence for two minutes thinking about the most horrific period in the history of the Jewish people.
Six million were murdered. One-third of our people. In relative terms, that's like 100 million Americans. And if you cannot wrap your mind around such a number, imagine a 9/11 every day for a century – imagine that, and you can appreciate the toll that the Holocaust exacted on the Jewish people.
Some people think that we Jews are fixated on the Holocaust - that all the museums and memorials that have been built and held are a sign that we are trapped in the past.
But to me, what is remarkable about the Jewish people is how little we are fixated on the Holocaust, and how quickly we have overcome its horrors to rebuild our national life.
That rebirth came about first and foremost because a stateless and powerless people was transformed into a sovereign nation capable of defending itself.
Out of the hopelessness of destruction came the purposefulness of redemption.
The rebirth of the Jewish people also owes a deep great debt of gratitude to the United States of America, both for its support of the State of Israel over many decades and for being a place where Jews can fully embrace their Jewish identity and at the same time be fully American.
Secretary Lew is a perfect example of that.
But whether it was in Israel, America or anywhere else, the force that has driven this rebirth has been the indomitable spirit of the Jewish people. The spirit of people like Joseph and Rivka Weiss.
70 years ago this month, Joseph and Rivka, who were not related but who had the same name and were from the same village, were herded into a ghetto in Hungary. A few weeks later, they were riding cattle cars to Auschwitz.
The day Joseph arrived, his entire family was gassed and cremated. But his skills as a furniture maker proved useful to his Nazi masters. He made them false suitcase bottoms so they could smuggle out valuables.
That skill helped him survive eight months in the death camp, but was of little use on the death march he would eventually be forced to endure.
Rivka arrived in Auschwitz five days after Yosef. Mengele separated her from her parents and some of her siblings. She went from Auschwitz-Birkenau to slave labor camps, including the infamous rock quarry of krakow- plashow. Eventually, she ended up in Terenzenstadt.
Joseph and Rivka could have shared the fate of all the others who perished in the hell called Auschwitz - a place in which as many as 10,000 Jews were murdered every day.
But they survived. They met up after their liberation, married and moved to America. They started a family and rebuilt their shattered lives.
At the Passover Seder, we read about four sons who are taught about the Jewish people's journey from slavery to freedom -- about the fact that in every generation there are those who rise up to wipe the Jewish people out but that God saves us from their hand.
Joseph and Rivka Weiss did not have to teach their four sons that message because that was their life story.
They passed on to their children their deep faith in God and in the future of the Jewish people.
Joseph and Rivka Weiss are buried in Jerusalem but their four sons - Anchi, Chaim, Manny and Moshe - are here with us today.
When I listen to that siren blare in Israel every year, I think of the six million branches on the tree of our people that were cut down.
But I also think of Joseph and Rivka Weiss - of their 4 sons, 18 grandchildren and some 3 dozen and counting great-grandchildren who often gather together in Jerusalem to rejoice over a bar or bat mitzvah, a wedding or the birth of a child.
I think of the pride that I was privileged to witness in the eyes of Joseph and Rivka Weiss. The pride that comes from knowing that your branch has withstood the Nazi storm and is blossoming in the Jewish state.
I think of the generations of our enemies who have tried to cut down the tree of our people - and who have all failed.
And I am filled with confidence that this generation of our enemies will fail as well.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The tree of the Jewish people is now rooted in its own soil.
It grows taller and stronger, decade after decade, reaching greater heights in technology and innovation, science and medicine, culture and learning.
It is protected by a sovereign Jewish state and defended by a powerful army, whose soldiers possess the courage of the Maccabees of old.
And I have no doubt in the world that it is also guarded by an ancient promise made to my people:
נצח ישראל לא ישקר
The tree of Israel will never be cut down.