U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, participating in ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of
Auschwitz, said today (Thursday, Jan. 27) that the Holocaust teaches 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," Cheney said at a "Let My People Live"
Forum in Krakow, Poland.
Cheney, in remarks distributed by the White
House press office, told his audience:
"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."
—Donald
H. Harrison
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