The following are excerpts of remarks by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) during Holocaust Remembrance Week:

     Mr. Speaker, I rise for this Holocaust Remembrance Week to honor the people murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, especially the six million Jews singled out for genocide. The methods of mass murder were unspeakable, horrifying and modern. The anti-Semitic hate fueling the killing was an ancient, persistent evil, a disease of the heart that dehumanizes and destroys.

     The late, iconic Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel wrote that “The anti-Semite is an ideological fanatic and pathological racist. An anti-Semite is someone who never met me, never heard of me, yet he hates me.” In addition, neighbors, colleagues, and friends, being murdered, strangers, from the youngest to the oldest, were targeted and annihilated merely for being Jewish or being perceived to be Jewish.

     Children were even taught to hate the Jewish people, informally at home and formally at schools and through organizations like Hitler Youth. This wicked ideology was imposed on countries conquered by the Nazis. Several generations of Germans and other Europeans were infected by this poison and it may take several generations more for it to be purged from the body of Europe.

     Families were robbed of lives, homes were robbed of their belongings, and countries were robbed of the talents of their Jewish citizens. Europe, indeed the world, has been poorer because of this theft. We will never know which cultural, scientific, and other gifts, past, present, and future, were consumed by the carnage of the Holocaust.

     It may be tempting to think of the Holocaust as history from long ago. In the span of human history the Holocaust was close enough to be more like the present than the past. Some survivors are still alive, witnessing to the resilience of the Jewish people over the millennia, and perpetrators continue to be prosecuted. Anti-Semitism did not end with the Holocaust.

     Anti-Semitic evil is still evident locally and globally. In my district, the Congregation Sons of Israel synagogue was recently vandalized for the second time in nine months. This time cowardly criminals spray-painted 666 on an outdoor Holocaust memorial and drew a swastika-like symbol on a nearby pick-up truck.

     For all of America in 2016, the latest year for which the FBI has issued hate crimes statistics, fifty four percent of the victims of anti-religion criminal offenses were Jewish. Every year since Congress began requiring the FBI to collect and report these figures in 1996, more victims of victims of anti-religious hate crimes have been Jewish than any other religious group. 

     Witnesses testified at a hearing I chaired last year on “Anti-Semitism Across Borders” that extremist groups in the United States are using, modifying, adapting, and boosting the anti-Semitic tactics and strategies of extremists in Europe – which has been the site of so many violent and deadly attacks on Jewish communities in recent years.

     Anti-Semitism is hard-wired into the ideology, propaganda, radicalization, targeting, and operations of terrorist groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Neo-Nazis and fringe political elements in Europe are openly promoting anti-Semitism. Segments of Muslim society in Europe have been sources of anti-Semitic incidents, including refugees and migrants who arrive with the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel attitudes of their countries and regions of origin. Anti-Semitism has become mainstream across the political and economic spectrum in many European countries to a degree unseen since World War II.

     The rise of anti-Semitism in Latin America reflects trends in Europe as well as in some instances the influence of Iran and its terrorist proxies like Hezbollah that threaten Israel and Jewish communities everywhere.

     The Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement, more commonly known as BDS, is a vicious example what the great Natan Sharansky rightfully called “new anti-Semitism”: Anti-Semitism under the guise of criticizing the State of Israel. This new anti-Semitism is rampant on college and university campuses and is even found among local governments. Modern anti-Jewish hatred is as outrageous as older anti-Semitism.

     We must fight anti-Jewish hatred until it is defeated. The safety and security of Jewish communities is paramount and must be prioritized – particularly through strengthened and new partnerships between law enforcement agencies and these communities. Our domestic law enforcement agencies at every level have to ensure they are focused on anticipating, preventing and responding to anti-Semitic crimes. Iran, ISIS, Hezbollah, and other terrorist entities that threaten Israel and Jewish communities elsewhere must be confronted.

     Stand we must and stand we will with Jewish communities so that they are able to flourish without fear.