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Remarks to the American Gathering of Jewish Administration of William J. Clinton, 1995 / Apr. 30 737 Most of you were able, and I think it was cause as long as this work is going on, I think difficult, to show commendable restraint in I owe it to you to tell you for all of our some- not jumping to any conclusions about who times conflicting interests, I am really proud did this terrible thing. And most of you have of the work the American press corps did really done a great deal to help the American in bringing this to the American people. And people find some renewed strength and en- the work is not over. The understanding is ergy. And I thank you for that. And I hope not over. in the days ahead you will be able to continue We have a lot of difficult decisions to make it. in the weeks and months ahead. As you As this story unfolds, I would ask you to know, I feel very strongly that the country continue to return to Oklahoma City, to up- should adopt stronger measures against ter- date our country on how the families who rorism. It will be debated in the Congress. have suffered so much are rebuilding their Some of the measures are complex. You will lives, and to remind us about the countless have to explain them to the American people. heroes we have all seen there. The terrible I ask only that in all of this, you never forget people who did this thing do not deserve to the human dimension that you have so skill- be celebrities, although they will become fa- fully and heroically brought home to all the mous. But the victims and their families and people of this country. the people who have labored, they don't de- We are going to get through this, and when serve to be forgotten. we do, we'll be even stronger. We've been The heroes of this tragedy embody the un- around here now for more than 200 years breakable spirit of our Nation. They should because almost all the time more than half always be remembered, the hundreds of res- of us wind up somehow doing the right thing. cue workers who defied the rain, the cold, And we will do the right thing again. the heartache, and a very real risk to their I'd like to close with words written by the own lives. People like Rebecca Anderson, a wonderful poet, W.H. Auden, over 50 years nurse with four children, whose parents still ago, ``In the deserts of the heart, let the heal- live in my home State, who was hit by a piece ing fountain start. In the prison of his days, of concrete and later died trying to help oth- teach the free man how to praise.'' ers. Even in death she continued to serve We praise America tonight, and we thank the living by giving her heart to save the life you for bringing it home to us in such a pow- of a man from Oklahoma, and one of her erful way in these last days. kidneys to save the life of a woman from New Good night, and God bless you all. Mexico. Now, folks, that is the real America. Some- NOTE: The President spoke at 10:47 p.m. at the times all of us forget it a little bit. Sometimes Washington Hilton. In his remarks, he referred to Ken Walsh, outgoing president, White House all of us are too bound up in what we are Correspondents Association, and entertainer doing. But this country is bound together in Conan O'Brien. a way that the people like those who commit- ted those crimes in Oklahoma can never un- derstand. And I know our Government is not Remarks to the American Gathering perfect, and I know it makes mistakes. But of Jewish Holocaust Survivors in New this is a very free country and a very great York City country. And a lot of the people who are out April 30, 1995 there complaining about it today would not even be able to do what they do in the way Foreign Minister Peres, thank you for your they do it in most of the other democracies powerful words, the example of your life, and in the world today. And we should never for- your tireless work for peace. Rabbi Lau, Gov- get it. ernor Pataki, Senator Moynihan, Senator I say this tonight not to pour cold water D'Amato, members of the New York con- on this wonderful evening and not because gressional delegation, Speaker Silver, Ambas- I haven't enjoyed itÐI think I laughed hard- sador Rabinovich and members of the Diplo- er tonight than anybody else hereÐbut be- matic Corps, Mr. MayorÐand of course, my VerDate 28-OCT-97 13:53 Jan 18, 1998 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 1244 Sfmt 1244 W:\DISC\P18MY4.001 p18my4 738 Apr. 30 / Administration of William J. Clinton, 1995 friend Benjamin Meed. I thank you and your born after the war will then have to shoulder wife for joining us and helping Hillary and the responsibility that the survivors have car- me and, through us, the entire United States ried for so long: to fight all forms of racism, last year to understand the deepest and to combat those who distort the past and profoundest meaning of the Warsaw Upris- peddle hate in the present, to stand against ing. the new forms of organized evil and counter This year we mark the 50th anniversary their determination to use and to abuse the of the end of the Holocaust. Since Biblical modern miracles of technology and openness times, 50th anniversaries have had special and possibility that offer us the opportunity meanings. Our English word ``jubilee'' comes to build for our children the most remarkable to us from the Hebrew word for that anniver- world ever known but still carry, within these sary. And the Scripture tells us that every forces, the seeds of further destruction. 50th year is to be holy and the land should I have hope for the future because our be left fallow and slaves freed upon the blow- Americans are embracing the responsibility ing of a shofar. It was a year in the Scriptures of memory. In the 2 years since the Holo- that closed an era and began another. caust Memorial Museum opened, more than We think of such things here on the end 4 million peopleÐmore, many more than of this century and the beginning of a new were expectedÐhave visited that remarkable millennium, but in profound ways there can place. The daily number of visitors is still in- be no such closure for the half-century after creasing, and about 8 of every 10 Americans the Holocaust. For all of those who lived who visit are not Jews. Twenty thousand through it and all of us who came after, the school groups have been there already, and Holocaust redefined our understanding of with the help of the museum, some 40,000 the human capacity for evil. Anyone who has teachers around our country now teach about stood in that tower of photographs in the the Holocaust in their classes. Perhaps those Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washing- children one day will be the kind of adults ton, who has seen those unforgettable, warm, who would stop and ask why and do more expressive faces from that small Lithuanian if someone ever came to take a friend or a town, anyone who has seen the horror even neighbor away. in pictures knows that we must now and If so, we will have been true to the mem- never allow the memory of those events to ory of the victims of the Holocaust, and we fade. will have pressed the cause of decency and The Bible also made the link between human dignity yet one more step forward. memory and deed, enjoining us so often to This is our task: making memory real and remember the years of slavery in Egypt and making memory a guide for our own actions. the acts of the wicked and then to act mor- I am reminded of the extraordinary visit ally. Today we must remember those years I had last year to the Old Jewish Cemetery of radical evil as though it were a command- in Prague, that great forest of stones. As you ment to do so because, as we have seen, ha- know, everyone who visits there, or any Jew- tred still flourishes where it has a chance. ish cemetery, puts a stone on a grave, adding Intolerance still lurks, waiting to spread. Rac- to memory, never subtracting from it. For ist violence still threatens abroad and at me, someone new to the experience, it was home. an overwhelming symbol of how we all ought We are taught in our faith that as much to think and live. as we might regret it, deep within the human Over the centuries, memory has been built spirit there is, and will always remain until there in Prague in a very deep and profound the end of time, the capacity for evil. It must way, in the city that Hitler wanted to turn be remembered, and it must be opposed. into a museum for what he hoped would be The commandment to remember is espe- an extinct people. We, too, now must add cially great now because, as the Foreign Min- to those stones, stones of remembrance, like ister said, this has been a very bloody cen- this day-long gathering, stones that add to tury.
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