Reagan Expresses Horror at Claim That the Holocaust is a Hoax

— President Reagan said today that he was “horrified” when he heard people claim that the Holocaust is a hoax and that six million Jews were not murdered by the Nazis. He vowed to use his “bully pulpit” to “point a finger of shame” at all ugly acts, from graffiti to violence.

Speaking to several hundred Jewish leaders and others at ceremonies marking the “Days of Remembrance” of the Holocaust at the White House, Reagan also pledged that the U.S. will speak out at all international forums and negotiating tables to protest the persecution of people anywhere. The annual event, sponsored by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, was held in the East Room of the White House instead of the Rose Garden because of rain.

Referring to those who claim the Holocaust is a hoax, Reagan recalled that during World War II he served in an army branch which processed military film from overseas and he saw the first scenes taken at the first Nazi concentration camp to be liberated by American forces. Anyone who saw this film knew it was not a hoax, Reagan said.

WIESEL URGES BEARING WITNESS

Author Elie Wiesel, chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Council, said survivors of the Holocaust must bear witness to those events, “not to divide people but, on the contrary, to bring them together; not to create more suffering but, on the contrary, to diminish it; not to humiliate anyone but, on the contrary, to teach others not to humiliate anyone.”

Wiesel said the more people learned about the Holocaust the less they could understand it. He pointed in particular to the failure of others to prevent or lessen its effects at the time. He noted pointedly that many Holocaust survivors now live in Israel and that Jews feel that Israel has “a right not only to be secure but also to feel secure.” Wiesel said Israel is threatened with a holy war and that for Jews who witnessed the Holocaust, “the idea of another Jewish catastrope anywhere” would be “unbearable. Israel must never be abandoned.”

LESSONS OF THE HOLOCAUST

Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R. Minn.), who escaped from Nazi Germany with his family as a boy, said that the U.S. has been good to Jews and other minorities. But, he observed, the Holocaust has taught Jews that they need a place to go in times of danger. During the Nazi period they had no place

to go, he said. The White House ceremonies were introduced by Jacob Stein, a special advisor to the President. Rep. Sidney Yates (D. III.) introduced a candle-lighting ceremony in which six Holocaust survivors lit candles in memory of those who perished. Cantor Isaac Goodfriend of Ahavat Achim Congregation in Atlanta chanted the El Mole Rahamim. Kaddish was led by Dr. Alfred Gottschalk, president of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.

In a speech in the House today, Sen. Alfonse D’ Amato (R. N.Y.) called on “all nations the world over to pause and reflect on the horrors of the Holocaust. We, as a civilized world cannot be allowed to forget the barbaric inhumanity we witnessed in the camps of annihilation some forty years ago.”

Continuing, he said: “Future generations must be told of the terrors committed by the Nazis whose apologists are even now attempting to cover up the Holocaust in a futile effort to rewrite history. The stark insanity of the world under Hitler must remain exposed to the truth for all time to come to ensure that this type of unspeakable crime can never happen again.”

NEED TO COMBAT RACISM, BIGOTRY

Last night, more than 1000 persons attended a local Holocaust remembrance gathering here sponsored by the Holocaust Committee of the Jewish Community Council (JCC) of Greater Washington at Beth Sholom Congregation. Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D. Conn.) told them that Jews know that whenever racism and bigotry is stirred up, they are among the first to be attacked but not the last. He said Jews must be on constant guard to combat racism and bigotry wherever it breaks out against them or others.

Gedjenson, who was born in a U.S. displaced persons camp in Germany, is the first child of Holocaust survivors to be elected to Congress. He stressed that the Nazis not only wanted to exterminate the Jews but “to erase their memory.” He said the Holocaust must be constantly remembered.

Rabbi Bertram Leff, spiritual leader of Beth Sholom Congregation and chairman of the JCC Holocaust Council, said that in bearing witness to the Holocaust, Jews honored the Biblical injunction, “Thou shalt not stand idly by the blood of they neighbor.” He declared that until all people are free, none will be free and secure. “We will never again pay the price of silence,” he said.

Members of the Club Sholom, an organization of Holocaust survivors, and of The Generation After, an organization of children of Holocaust survivors, lit candles in memory of those who died. Songs were sung by children of the Hebrew Academy choir.