Floor Statement Israeli Independence

FLOOR STATEMENT ISRAELI INDEPENDENCE

One of the most gratifying aspects of serving in the U.S. Senate is the opportunity to come to this chamber and talk about and celebrate the great events in American and world history. One such event occurred 57 ago today -- and that is the creation of the nation of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East and the eternal homeland for all Jews around the world. Israel, our enduring friend and everlasting ally, was reborn from its biblical birthright on this day in 1948. Mr. President, two years ago on the 58th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe and again this week on its 60th anniversary, I spoke about how American soldiers successfully fought both the fascism in Europe that spread like a cancer across that continent and Adolf Hitler's efforts to eradicate the Jewish race. Last week, we honored the souls of those murdered in the holocaust on Yom Ha-Shoa -- the Day of Remembrance. And, today, we celebrate the result of all of this history, which is Israel's independence. My father, Richard DeWine, when he was serving in World War II in K Company, which was part of the Army's 103rd Infantry Division, visited one of the Nazi concentration camps -- Dachau -- after it had been liberated. Though K Company did not participate in the liberation of Dachau, the 411th Regiment of their 103rd Division did liberate the camp at Landsburg, Germany. When my father was at Dachau, a camp where over 28,000 Jews had perished, the prisoners had already left the camp. He has a vivid recollection, though, of seeing the ovens that the Nazis used to burn so many of the prisoners. He can still picture in his mind the devices they used to slide the bodies into the ovens and the many urns that contained prisoners' ashes. He also remembers going into the room next to the ovens and seeing fixtures on the walls that looked like shower heads. Those at the camp told him that the prisoners were taken there and told that they were going to take showers. Instead of water coming out of the nozzles, however, poison gas was emitted, killing them all. He remembers walking down the road near the camp and encountering a very weak, emaciated man who had been a prisoner. He and his buddies talked to the man and gave him food and cigarettes. My dad asked him if he could take his picture and he agreed, so long as he could have it taken along with an American soldier. My dad still has that photo. Carl Greene, who was also a member of K Company, remembers their visit to Dachau, as well. He said that some of the former prisoners in the camp -- still wearing those unforgettable stripped uniforms -- served as their guides through the camp, showing them the gas chambers and the creamatorium, and the area in the camp where the Nazis would shoot prisoners in the back of their heads. K Company member Al Eucare Sr., who was just 18 years old at the time, remembers what he describes as one-man pill boxes that stood outside the gates of Dachau. These were cylindrical pipes that stood upright and were just big enough for a man to fit inside. They were something of a sentry post. Each of these concrete tubes contained an open slat at the top and the bottom where guns were placed to shoot at prisoners if there was disorder as they went in and out of the gates. Like my dad, Al also remembers the ovens at Dachau. He said that when he was there, even though it was after the camp was liberated and the War was over, there were still ashes and skeletal remains inside the ovens. He also remembers seeing hooks something akin to meat hooks, that the Nazis would hook dead bodies on like cattle to move them more easily. He said that they would put the bodies on by hooking them right underneath the jaw. He had heard stories that sometimes live Jews were placed on those hooks and left there until they died. General Eisenhower visited many of the camps before the War ended and reported back on what he saw. In one of his reports, this is what he described: "[On April 12, 1945,] I saw my first horror camp. It was near the town of Gotha. I have never felt able to describe my emotional reactions when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency. Up to that time, I had known about it only generally or through secondary sources. I am certain, however that I have never at any other time experienced an equal sense of shock.

I visited every nook and cranny of the camp because I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify at first hand about these things in case there ever grew up at home the belief or assumption that ‘the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda.' Some members of the visiting party were unable to [go] through the ordeal.

I not only did so but as soon as I returned to Patton's headquarters that evening, I sent communications to both Washington and London, urging the two governments to send instantly to Germany a random group of newspaper editors and representative groups from the national legislatures. I felt that the evidence should be immediately placed before the American and British publics in a fashion that would leave no room for cynical doubt." To think about it now, it defies credulity to consider that these atrocities were occurring and that there were those who questioned their reality. My father said that was one of the things that struck him when he visited Dachau 60 years ago -- the idea that there were townspeople there who would never admit that the death camp was out there. They acted as if it just never even existed. Fortunately, the world came to reveal what was happening, and although the rebirth of Israel came upon the heels of the modern tragedy of the Nazi death camps, it is important to remember that the Jewish people have struggled to regain their homeland ever since biblical times. The year 1948 marked the culmination of those efforts. After six million Jews were murdered in World War II, surviving Jews from across Europe and Asia made the trek to the holy land. They sought their homeland and peace. They obtained the former, but not the latter. One such man seeking a homeland and peace was Mark Steinbuch, the late father of one of my Judiciary staffers, Robert Steinbuch. Born in Poland, Mark and his family lived under Nazi occupation, relocated to Siberia shortly after the start of World War II, and then traveled for two weeks by cattle car to live in Soviet Kazakhstan. Mark's extended family faced some horrific challenges. Many were killed by the Nazis. His cousins -- the Hershenfis family -- were forced into labor in the Pionki ghetto in Poland. In 1941, the family was shipped off to Auschwitz. Hanna and her brother Harry were separated from each other and from their parents Fay and Harvey. Fay and Harvey never made it out of the death camp. Hanna, tattooed with the number A14699, was shipped to an intermediate camp and then Bergen-Belsen. Harry -- B416 to the Nazis -- worked hard labor in Auschwitz for four years and in 1944 was sent to another camp called Mauthausen.

On May 3, 1945, the Nazis fled the camp. That night the skies opened and sent down a rainfall as if the world was being cleansed from the horrors that it had seen. The next morning, the Americans arrived and the 11th Armored Division liberated the camp. Three days later, Harry turned 26.

After five weeks in an American hospital, Harry spent the next three years in a displaced persons camp in Austria. In 1949, Harry's wishes were answered, and he set off for America. Four years later, when Hanna also came to the United States, the siblings were reunited for the first time since they were shipped off to Auschwitz 13 years prior. Harry is 86 now and Hanna a few years younger -- both alive and well. Harry's sense of humor is strong. He plays down the difficulties that he faced. We know better. Upon the defeat of the Nazis, Mark Steinbuch's immediate family went to Germany, because, as Mark described it, "that is where the Americans were, and if you wanted to live, you went to the Americans." From there, Mark joined the Zionist Youth Movement and set off for Israel. That, however, was no easy task. Traveling across Europe, often on foot to a southern port, he, his brother, and many others like them boarded an overloaded freighter renamed the Theodore Hertzl after the founder of Zionist Movement. Upon the ship's arrival in Israel, the British quickly arrested its passengers and sent them to a holding camp in Cyprus. Months later, Mark and the others were allowed to enter Israel. Upon the joyous declaration of independence, seven Arab nations invaded Israel and Mark quickly joined the Army. Under-aged and flatfooted, he fought for the independence of this nascent democracy. Mark's story is by no means unique. It not only represented the goals and desires of the Jews of post-war Europe, but the dreams of a nation of people dispersed from their homeland for millennia. Mark's dreams were realized a year later when armistice was struck. Israel survived its first challenge. It, like the Jewish people after the holocaust, was still alive. Since then, Israel's existence has been continuously challenged. Israel defended itself from foreign aggression during the Suez-Canal Crisis, the Six-Day War, the War of Attrition, the Yom Kippur War, the War in Lebanon, and periods of extreme terrorism known as "Intifadas." Israel survived it all. OPEC blackmailed the world by withholding oil from the West because of the West's support for Israel. Israel's Olympic athletes were murdered by terrorists. And, the United Nations equated Zionism with fascism. Israel survived it all and much more. Israel is a survivor, but it is also so much more. The people of Israel have forested the desert, revived their language, built cities, and established a vigorous and ever-growing community. We support Israel because it is a democracy, because it shares our values and ideals, because it has been willing to suffer attacks at our request, and because, simply, it is our friend. We welcome other nations to choose to be the same, and for the many that have, we share the same relationship. America is a nation of justice, fairness, and principles. So is Israel. And, on this day, we wish our friend a happy and joyous anniversary.

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