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http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2008/ag-speech-081216.html
Remarks Prepared for Delivery by Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - 10:00 A.M. EST[...] This is a Memorial Museum — a physical and educational monument that perpetuates the memory of the six million who perished, by ensuring that the truth of their fate persists. The truth about the evil — there is no other word for it — of the Nazis and their collaborators. The truth about those people who watched and did nothing as their neighbors were taken away to the camps. And the truth about countries, including our own, that could have done more, sooner, to stop the atrocities.
It serves as a daily reminder to the leaders of the free world, and to the many visitors to our nation’s capital, that law without conscience is no guarantee of freedom; that even the seemingly most advanced of nations can be led down the path of evil; and that we must confront horror with action and vigilance, not lethargy and cowardice. It reminds us, as President Bush said here several years ago, that “the words ‘never again’ do not refer to the past — they refer to the future.” [...]
[...] Since it was created in 1979, the Department’s Office of Special Investigations has won more than 100 cases such as the one against Aleksandras Lileikis. The people it has prosecuted have ranged from high-ranking perpetrators, such as a former Interior and Justice Minister of Axis Croatia, to concentration camp guards and other trigger-pullers who carried out the brutal crimes.
Large and small, these cases are part of our overall effort to confront the Nazi horrors with the retribution of justice. They date to President Roosevelt’s declaration in 1942 that “the time will come” when those responsible for the Nazi’s crimes “shall have to stand in courts of law, in the very countries which they are now oppressing, and answer for those acts.” And they continued the work begun at Nuremberg, where one of my predecessors as Attorney General, Robert Jackson, declared: “That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance, and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law, is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.”
As time passes, there are fewer and fewer perpetrators of the Holocaust still living. But the missions of this Museum and the Justice Department do not depend on their existence. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, this Museum teaches and allows others to draw more general lessons that reach beyond the four corners of what is documented here. The Justice Department too has learned – and taught – those lessons.
Just as the Museum has focused on present-day mass killings such as those in Rwanda or Darfur, we at the Department are doing what we can to ensure that those responsible for such atrocities are brought to justice. We have provided support to the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia; to the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and to the Iraqi High Tribunal. And where we can, we are bringing our own cases. Both the Office of Special Investigations and the Domestic Security Section – parts of the Department’s Criminal Division – are pursuing cases against perpetrators of those international atrocities who find their way into our country.
The most prominent example of those efforts is the recent conviction of Chuckie Taylor Jr., the son of the former President of Liberia, who was convicted of torturing his countrymen. His conviction – the first in history under our criminal anti-torture statute – provides a measure of justice to those who were victimized by his reprehensible acts, and it sends a powerful message to human rights violators around the world that, when we can, we will hold them accountable for their crimes.
In these and other endeavors, we look forward to continuing our great partnership with this Museum. [...]
[...] this place, is partially about the victims who suffered and died in the Holocaust. It is partially about the criminals, many of whom were found, prosecuted, and punished. It is partially about the investigators, whose determination drives them to pursue these cases. But we hope it is ultimately about striving for justice, even while we acknowledge we can never completely achieve it – about the work and pain that must accompany its pursuit, and about the blessings that come from that effort.
I thank you all for your part in this effort, for the hard work that these documents represent, and for the good use still to be made of them.
Thank you very much.
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- - Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey
