TRANSCRIPT: Leader Schumer Remarks From Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony Honoring New Yorker Benjamin Ferencz And Observing Holocaust Remembrance Day

Washington, D.C. - Today, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) attended a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony honoring Benjamin Ferencez and observing Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Mr. Ferencz was one of the United States' lead prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials, leading what would become the largest murder trial in history. A proud New Yorker, Mr. Ferencz escapes antisemitic persecution in Hungary as a child and grew up in the tenement in the Lower East side of New York City. As antisemitism is on the rise, Leader Schumer emphasized that, now more than ever, it our responsibility to remember the Holocaust and combat the same hate that fueled it. Below are Leader Schumer's remarks from the event:

This morning, we gather here in remembrance and observance of Yom HaShoah.

My parents ensured I would never forget what happened to my great-grandmother and her whole family when the Nazis occupied their town in Galicia in 1941. The S.S. asked the Jews of that community, Chortkiv, to gather in the town square. About 200 people, 200 Jews in that town. The S.S. then forced my grandmother to bring her greater family of over 35 from ages 80s to three months to her porch. The Nazis said, you're coming with us. She said, we will not leave. And they machine gunned every one of them down.

Today, during Yom HaShoah, we remember them and the six million other Jews who perished in the Holocaust. We renew our solemn pledge, never again.

We also remember those who stood up for human dignity eight decades ago. That is why we today honor-with the highest civilian award Congress can bestow, the Congressional Gold Medal-the great New Yorker Benjamin Ferencz, may his memory be a blessing. His family escaped antisemitic persecution in Hungary when he was a child in the 20s. He went from living in a basement tenement on the Lower East Side to becoming one of the United States' lead prosecutors at Nuremberg. At the age of just 27, he oversaw prosecution of the Nazis' mobile S.S. death squads that murdered more than a million people. A truly remarkable fight for justice.

I helped champion the legislation, along with my colleague Senator Gillibrand and others, to give Ben Ferencz this award. Not only because he, without a doubt, deserved it, but also to demonstrate that Congress will never forget the lessons of the Holocaust.

In his opening statement at Nuremberg, Ben Ferencz said of the Holocaust, "we cannot shut our eyes to a fact ominous and full of foreboding for all of mankind." We must continue to keep our eyes open today at a time when antisemitism sadly runs rampant around the world once again. The responsibility falls on all of us. We must remember how the Holocaust happened, how too many stood silent in the face of evil, and how the death of democracy in Europe enabled the death of six million Jews. The poisons of fascism and antisemitism come from the same vial. The antidote is to call out and condemn anti-Semitism wherever and whenever it rears its ugly head. That is why we will continue to keep our eyes open and to never, never forget. Thank you.

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