Biden warns Holocaust deniers’ voice growing louder

Expressing concern over the increasingly amplified voice of Holocaust deniers, US President Joe Biden stresses the importance of passing down the lessons of the Nazi-perpetrated genocide to future generations, in a statement marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“We must pass the history of the Holocaust on to our grandchildren and their grandchildren in order to keep real the promise of ‘never again,'” says Biden in the statement released by the White House. “That is how we prevent future genocides. Remembering the victims, heroes and lessons of the Holocaust is particularly important today as Holocaust deniers and minimizers are growing louder in our public discourse.”

Biden highlights the 2017 march in Charlottesville, Virginia where “white nationalists and neo-Nazis spewing the same anti-Semitic bile we heard in the 1930s in Europe” and says the harrowing scenes were ultimately what drove him to run for president.

US President Joe Biden answers questions from reporters in the South Court Auditorium on the White House complex, Monday, Jan. 25, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

“The Holocaust was no accident of history. It occurred because too many governments cold-bloodedly adopted and implemented hate-fueled laws, policies and practices to vilify and dehumanize entire groups of people, and too many individuals stood by silently,” the president says.

He stresses the importance of combating the “resurgent tide of anti-Semitism, and other forms of bigotry and intolerance, here at home and around the world.”

Biden also pledges to be a “champion justice for Holocaust survivors and their heirs.”

Unlike his predecessor Donald Trump, whose first statement marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day failed to explicitly mention Jews, Biden highlights the religious minority right off the bat.

“Today, we join together with people from nations around the world to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day by remembering the 6 million Jews, as well as the Roma and Sinti, Slavs, disabled persons, LGBTQ+ individuals, and many others, who were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Shoah,” he says.