THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everyone. It is a great honor to be with
you here today. Of course, it is a truly humbling moment to be
introduced by Elie Wiesel. Along with Sara Bloomfield, the outstanding
director here, we just spent some time among the exhibits, and this is
now the second visit I've had here. My daughters have come here. It is
a searing occasion whenever you visit. And as we walked, I was taken
back to the visit that Elie mentioned, the time that we traveled
together to Buchenwald.
And I recall how he showed me the barbed-wire fences and the guard
towers. And we walked the rows where the barracks once stood, where so
many left this Earth -- including Elie’s father, Shlomo. We stopped at
an old photo -- men and boys lying in their wooden bunks, barely more
than skeletons. And if you look closely, you can see a 16-year old boy,
looking right at the camera, right into your eyes. You can see Elie.
And at the end of our visit that day, Elie spoke of his father. "I
thought one day I will come back and speak to him," he said, "of times
in which memory has become a sacred duty of all people of goodwill."
Elie, you've devoted your life to upholding that sacred duty. You’ve
challenged us all -- as individuals, and as nations -- to do the same,
with the power of your example, the eloquence of your words, as you did
again just now. And so to you and Marion, we are extraordinarily
grateful.
To Sara, to Tom Bernstein, to Josh Bolten, members of the United States
Holocaust Memorial Council, and everyone who sustains this living
memorial -- thank you for welcoming us here today. To the members of
Congress, members of the diplomatic corps, including Ambassador Michael
Oren of Israel, we are glad to be with you.
And most of all, we are honored to be in the presence of men and women
whose lives are a testament to the endurance and the strength of the
human spirit -- the inspiring survivors. It is a privilege to be with
you, on a very personal level. As I’ve told some of you before, I grew
up hearing stories about my great uncle -- a soldier in the 89th
Infantry Division who was stunned and shaken by what he saw when he
helped to liberate Ordruf, part of Buchenwald. And I’ll never forget
what I saw at Buchenwald, where so many perished with the words of Sh’ma
Yis’ra’eil on their lips.
I’ve stood with survivors, in the old Warsaw ghettos, where a monument
honors heroes who said we will not go quietly; we will stand up, we will
fight back. And I’ve walked those sacred grounds at Yad Vashem, with
its lesson for all nations -- the Shoah cannot be denied.
During my visit to Yad Vashem I was given a gift, inscribed with those
words from the Book of Joel: "Has the like of this happened in your
days or in the days of your fathers? Tell your children about it, and
let your children tell theirs, and their children the next generation."
That’s why we’re here. Not simply to remember, but to speak.
I say this as a President, and I say it as a father. We must tell our
children about a crime unique in human history. The one and only
Holocaust -- six million innocent people -- men, women, children, babies
-- sent to their deaths just for being different, just for being
Jewish. We tell them, our children, about the millions of Poles and
Catholics and Roma and gay people and so many others who also must never
be forgotten. Let us tell our children not only how they died, but
also how they lived -- as fathers and mothers, and sons and daughters,
and brothers and sisters who loved and hoped and dreamed, just like
us.
We must tell our children about how this evil was allowed to happen --
because so many people succumbed to their darkest instincts, and because
so many others stood silent. Let us also tell our children about the
Righteous Among the Nations. Among them was Jan Karski, a young Polish
Catholic, who witnessed Jews being put on cattle cars, who saw the
killings, and who told the truth, all the way to President Roosevelt
himself.
Jan Karski passed away more than a decade ago. But today, I’m proud to
announce that this spring I will honor him with America’s highest
civilian honor -- the Presidential Medal of Freedom. (Applause.)
We must tell our children. But more than that, we must teach them.
Because remembrance without resolve is a hollow gesture. Awareness
without action changes nothing. In this sense, "never again" is a
challenge to us all -- to pause and to look within.
For the Holocaust may have reached its barbaric climax at Treblinka and
Auschwitz and Belzec, but it started in the hearts of ordinary men and
women. And we have seen it again -- madness that can sweep through
peoples, sweep through nations, embed itself. The killings in Cambodia,
the killings in Rwanda, the killings in Bosnia, the killings in Darfur
-- they shock our conscience, but they are the awful extreme of a
spectrum of ignorance and intolerance that we see every day; the bigotry
that says another person is less than my equal, less than human. These
are the seeds of hate that we cannot let take root in our heart.
"Never again" is a challenge to reject hatred in all of its forms --
including anti-Semitism, which has no place in a civilized world. And
today, just steps from where he gave his life protecting this place, we
honor the memory of Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns, whose family joins us
today.
"Never again" is a challenge to defend the fundamental right of free
people and free nations to exist in peace and security -- and that
includes the State of Israel. And on my visit to the old Warsaw Ghetto,
a woman looked me in the eye, and she wanted to make sure America stood
with Israel. She said, "It’s the only Jewish state we have." And I
made her a promise in that solemn place. I said I will always be there
for Israel.
So when efforts are made to equate Zionism to racism, we reject them.
When international fora single out Israel with unfair resolutions, we
vote against them. When attempts are made to delegitimize the state of
Israel, we oppose them. When faced with a regime that threatens global
security and denies the Holocaust and threatens to destroy Israel, the
United States will do everything in our power to prevent Iran from
getting a nuclear weapon.
"Never again" is a challenge to societies. We’re joined today by
communities who’ve made it your mission to prevent mass atrocities in
our time. This museum’s Committee of Conscience, NGOs, faith groups,
college students, you’ve harnessed the tools of the digital age --
online maps and satellites and a video and social media campaign seen by
millions. You understand that change comes from the bottom up, from
the grassroots. You understand -- to quote the task force convened by
this museum -- "preventing genocide is an achievable goal." It is an
achievable goal. It is one that does not start from the top; it starts
from the bottom up.
It’s remarkable -- as we walked through this exhibit, Elie and I were
talking as we looked at the unhappy record of the State Department and
so many officials here in the United States during those years. And he
asked, "What would you do?" But what you all understand is you don't
just count on officials, you don't just count on governments. You count
on people -- and mobilizing their consciences.
And finally, "never again" is a challenge to nations. It’s a bitter
truth -- too often, the world has failed to prevent the killing of
innocents on a massive scale. And we are haunted by the atrocities that
we did not stop and the lives we did not save.
Three years ago today, I joined many of you for a ceremony of
remembrance at the U.S. Capitol. And I said that we had to do
"everything we can to prevent and end atrocities." And so I want to
report back to some of you today to let you know that as President I’ve
done my utmost to back up those words with deeds. Last year, in the
first-ever presidential directive on this challenge, I made it clear
that "preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national
security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States
of America."
That does not mean that we intervene militarily every time there’s an
injustice in the world. We cannot and should not. It does mean we
possess many tools -- diplomatic and political, and economic and
financial, and intelligence and law enforcement and our moral suasion --
and using these tools over the past three years, I believe -- I know --
that we have saved countless lives.
When the referendum in South Sudan was in doubt, it threatened to
reignite a conflict that had killed millions. But with determined
diplomacy, including by some people in this room, South Sudan became the
world’s newest nation. And our diplomacy continues, because in Darfur,
in Abyei, in Southern Kordofan and the Blue Nile, the killing of
innocents must come to an end. The Presidents of Sudan and South Sudan
must have the courage to negotiate -- because the people of Sudan and
South Sudan deserve peace. That is work that we have done, and it has
saved lives.
When the incumbent in Côte D’Ivoire lost an election but refused to
give it up -- give up power, it threatened to unleash untold ethnic and
religious killings. But with regional and international diplomacy, and
U.N. peacekeepers who stood their ground and protected civilians, the
former leader is now in The Hague, and Côte D’Ivoire is governed by its
rightful leader -- and lives were saved.
When the Libyan people demanded their rights and Muammar Qaddafi’s
forces bore down on Benghazi, a city of 700,000, and threatened to hunt
down its people like rats, we forged with allies and partners a
coalition that stopped his troops in their tracks. And today, the
Libyan people are forging their own future, and the world can take pride
in the innocent lives that we saved.
And when the Lord’s Resistance Army led by Joseph Kony continued its
atrocities in Central Africa, I ordered a small number of American
advisors to help Uganda and its neighbors pursue the LRA. And when I
made that announcement, I directed my National Security Council to
review our progress after 150 days. We have done so, and today I can
announce that our advisors will continue their efforts to bring this
madman to justice, and to save lives. (Applause.) It is part of our
regional strategy to end the scourge that is the LRA, and help realize a
future where no African child is stolen from their family and no girl
is raped and no boy is turned into a child soldier.
We’ve stepped up our efforts in other ways. We’re doing more to
protect women and girls from the horror of wartime sexual violence.
With the arrest of fugitives like Ratko Mladic, charged with ethnic
cleansing in Bosnia, the world sent a message to war criminals
everywhere: We will not relent in bringing you to justice. Be on
notice. And for the first time, we explicitly barred entry into the
United States of those responsible for war crimes and crimes against
humanity.
Now we’re doing something more. We’re making sure that the United
States government has the structures, the mechanisms to better prevent
and respond to mass atrocities. So I created the first-ever White House
position dedicated to this task. It’s why I created a new Atrocities
Prevention Board, to bring together senior officials from across our
government to focus on this critical mission. This is not an
afterthought. This is not a sideline in our foreign policy. The board
will convene for the first time today, at the White House. And I’m
pleased that one of its first acts will be to meet with some of your
organizations -- citizens and activists who are partners in this work,
who have been carrying this torch.
Going forward, we’ll strengthen our tools across the board, and we'll
create new ones. The intelligence community will prepare, for example,
the first-ever National Intelligence Estimate on the risk of mass
atrocities and genocide. We're going to institutionalize the focus on
this issue. Across government, "alert channels" will ensure that
information about unfolding crises -- and dissenting opinions -- quickly
reach decision-makers, including me.
Our Treasury Department will work to more quickly deploy its financial
tools to block the flow of money to abusive regimes. Our military will
take additional steps to incorporate the prevention of atrocities into
its doctrine and its planning. And the State Department will increase
its ability to surge our diplomats and experts in a crisis. USAID will
invite people and high-tech companies to help create new technologies to
quickly expose violations of human rights. And we’ll work with other
nations so the burden is better shared -- because this is a global
responsibility.
In short, we need to be doing everything we can to prevent and respond
to these kinds of atrocities -- because national sovereignty is never a
license to slaughter your people. (Applause.)
We recognize that, even as we do all we can, we cannot control every
event. And when innocents suffer, it tears at our conscience. Elie
alluded to what we feel as we see the Syrian people subjected to
unspeakable violence, simply for demanding their universal rights. And
we have to do everything we can. And as we do, we have to remember that
despite all the tanks and all the snipers, all the torture and
brutality unleashed against them, the Syrian people still brave the
streets. They still demand to be heard. They still seek their
dignity. The Syrian people have not given up, which is why we cannot
give up.
And so with allies and partners, we will keep increasing the pressure,
with a diplomatic effort to further isolate Assad and his regime, so
that those who stick with Assad know that they are making a losing bet.
We’ll keep increasing sanctions to cut off the regime from the money it
needs to survive. We’ll sustain a legal effort to document atrocities
so killers face justice, and a humanitarian effort to get relief and
medicine to the Syrian people. And we’ll keep working with the "Friends
of Syria" to increase support for the Syrian opposition as it grows
stronger.
Indeed, today we’re taking another step. I’ve signed an executive
order that authorizes new sanctions against the Syrian government and
Iran and those that abet them for using technologies to monitor and
track and target citizens for violence. These technologies should not
empower -- these technologies should be in place to empower citizens,
not to repress them. And it’s one more step that we can take toward the
day that we know will come -- the end of the Assad regime that has
brutalized the Syrian people -- and allow the Syrian people to chart
their own destiny.
Even with all the efforts I’ve described today, even with everything
that hopefully we have learned, even with the incredible power of
museums like this one, even with everything that we do to try to teach
our children about our own responsibilities, we know that our work will
never be done. There will be conflicts that are not easily resolved.
There will be senseless deaths that aren’t prevented. There will be
stories of pain and hardship that test our hopes and try our
conscience. And in such moments it can be hard to imagine a more just
world.
It can be tempting to throw up our hands and resign ourselves to man’s
endless capacity for cruelty. It’s tempting sometimes to believe that
there is nothing we can do. And all of us have those doubts. All of us
have those moments -- perhaps especially those who work most ardently
in these fields.
So in the end, I come back to something Elie said that day we visited
Buchenwald together. Reflecting on all that he had endured, he said,
"We had the right to give up." "We had the right to give up on
humanity, to give up on culture, to give up on education, to give up on
the possibility of living one's life with dignity, in a world that has
no place for dignity." They had that right. Imagine what they went
through. They had the right to give up. Nobody would begrudge them
that. Who’d question someone giving up in such circumstances?
But, Elie said, "We rejected that possibility, and we said, no, we must
continue believing in a future." To stare into the abyss, to face the
darkness and insist there is a future -- to not give up, to say yes to
life, to believe in the possibility of justice.
To Elie and to the survivors who are here today, thank you for not
giving up. You show us the way. (Applause.) You show us the way. If
you cannot give up, if you can believe, then we can believe. If you can
continue to strive and speak, then we can speak and strive for a future
where there’s a place for dignity for every human being. That has been
the cause of your lives. It must be the work of our nation and of all
nations.
So God bless you. And God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much. (Applause.)
