WEBVTT

00:00:04.604 --> 00:00:08.746
When you walked into the home where I
grew up, our living room shelves were

00:00:08.746 --> 00:00:12.738
filled with books of Jewish history,
and regrettably and all too often

00:00:12.738 --> 00:00:17.467
tragically, histories and stories of
anti-Semitism and violence that

00:00:17.467 --> 00:00:22.626
accompanied it. My mother had lived
this history. As a girl, she and her

00:00:22.626 --> 00:00:26.875
parents fled from Romania to France and
onto Cuba, because they could not make

00:00:26.875 --> 00:00:31.367
it safely to Israel or the United
States. Her father lost his parents,

00:00:31.367 --> 00:00:37.904
brothers and other family members in
the Holocaust. Through the years in the

00:00:37.904 --> 00:00:41.772
United States, my mother stayed in
touch with her two cousins, who

00:00:41.772 --> 00:00:47.455
survived the camps and had made it to
Israel alone. Our home was deeply

00:00:47.455 --> 00:00:51.612
rooted in my mother's experience of the
Holocaust, and the fragility of our

00:00:51.612 --> 00:00:57.019
safety wherever we might live in the
world. As you might expect, my mother's

00:00:57.019 --> 00:01:00.881
childhood profoundly shaped her
approach to a young child away from

00:01:00.881 --> 00:01:05.222
home through the night. When our fellow
elementary school students went to

00:01:05.222 --> 00:01:09.690
sleep away camps and had sleepovers
with friends, my siblings and I did

00:01:09.690 --> 00:01:14.455
not. My mother taught us the meaning
and experience of independence in

00:01:14.455 --> 00:01:19.609
different ways. She also taught us
three foundational principles that

00:01:19.609 --> 00:01:23.719
define for her the scourge of
antisemitism and other ideologies of

00:01:23.719 --> 00:01:30.165
hate. First, their existence manifests
in ways that we readily can see, but

00:01:30.165 --> 00:01:34.846
also lies more widely beneath the
surface, often undetected in the day to

00:01:34.846 --> 00:01:40.503
day goings on of life, but sometimes
appearing in the most subtle of ways.

00:01:40.503 --> 00:01:46.756
Second, their prevalence continues to
present an existential threat, and one

00:01:46.756 --> 00:01:50.764
can never assume that a Holocaust could
not happen again and could not happen

00:01:50.764 --> 00:01:56.832
where we, our children might live. And
third, that an attack born of hate

00:01:56.832 --> 00:02:02.947
against one minority is an attack
against all of society. I am proud to

00:02:02.947 --> 00:02:06.954
work in the Department of Homeland
Security, where every day we fight

00:02:06.954 --> 00:02:11.193
against hate and to improve the quality
of life for others, we are doing a

00:02:11.193 --> 00:02:15.253
great deal to equip and empower
communities across our country in that

00:02:15.253 --> 00:02:20.220
fight. Partnership in these efforts is
all the more important today as a

00:02:20.220 --> 00:02:25.127
manifestation of hate through violence
is on the rise everywhere. Together

00:02:25.127 --> 00:02:29.472
with our partners, we give a limitless
strength to our devotion to tolerance

00:02:29.472 --> 00:02:36.447
and basic human rights. Holocaust
Remembrance Day is recognized one day

00:02:36.447 --> 00:02:44.237
each year. We know that remembrance is
every day, as is the work that must

00:02:44.237 --> 00:02:49.011
accompany it. Today, if you walk into
the living room of the home where I was

00:02:49.011 --> 00:02:53.840
brought up and where my brother is now
raising his young family, our mother's

00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:58.333
collection of books Jewish history,
including the anti-Semitism that

00:02:58.333 --> 00:03:04.683
defined too much of it, is still on the
shelves. This year, as we devote a day

00:03:04.683 --> 00:03:09.452
to remembrance, let's redouble our
efforts to create the book that

00:03:09.452 --> 00:03:12.309
captures the end of that hate.