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United States Holocaust Memorial Council Appointment of the Membership.

May 02, 1980

The President's Commission on the Holocaust was created in November 1978 to make recommendations regarding the establishment and maintenance of an appropriate memorial to those who perished in the Holocaust, the systematic, state sponsored extermination of 6 million Jews and the murders of millions of other people. The Commission was further instructed to examine the feasibility of obtaining funds for the creation and maintenance of the Memorial through contributions by the American people.

The Commission submitted a report to the President in the fall of 1979 which recommends a three-part memorial:

—A National Holocaust Memorial Museum, to be erected in Washington, D.C., of symbolic and artistic beauty, visually and emotionally moving in accordance with the solemn nature of the Holocaust.

—An educational foundation dedicated to the pursuit of educational work through research and exploration of issues raised by the Holocaust for all areas of human knowledge and public policy.

—A Committee on Conscience composed of distinguished American moral leaders. This Committee would receive reports of actual or potential genocide anywhere in the world and alert the national conscience, influence policymakers, and stimulate worldwide action to bring such acts to a halt.

The President approved these recommendations with the understanding that funding proposals for the Memorial should provide that construction costs would be raised primarily from private contributions. He has now appointed a United States Holocaust Memorial Council, whose Chairman is Mr. Elie Wiesel, a survivor and noted author and scholar, formerly Chairman of the Holocaust Commission, to carry out the recommendations of the Commission. The members of the Council are:

JOSEPH ASHER, a rabbi and national vice president of the American Jewish Congress;

TIBOR BARANSKI, of the Social Services Department, Catholic Charities, Buffalo, N.Y., honored by Yad Vashem for his actions saving Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust;

IRVING BERNSTEIN, national executive vice president of the United Jewish Appeal;

MARVER BERNSTEIN, president of Brandeis University;

HYMAN BOOKBINDER, a survivor and Washington representative of the American Jewish Committee, who has also served as Washington chairman of the Ad Hoc Coalition for Ratification of Genocide Amendments;

VICTOR BORGE, the actor, long active in Tribute to the Danes, a foundation designed to honor the Danes for their efforts in World War II;

ROBERT McAFEE BROWN, professor of theology and ethics at Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, Calif.;

HARRY JAMES CARGAS, chairman of the department of literature, Webster College, and author of books on the Holocaust;

ESTHER COHEN, chair of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, member of the Golda Meir Club, a trustee of Yeshiva University;

GERSON D. COHEN, chancellor and Jacob H. Schoff professor of history at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America;

MARIO CUOMO, Lieutenant Governor of New York, former attorney and law professor, and a member of the Legal Committee for Soviet Jewry;

ARTHUR DAVIS, a Des Moines, Iowa, attorney active in civic and humanitarian affairs;

TERRENCE DES PRES, professor of English at Colgate University and author of "The Survivor", a study of how people survived the Holocaust;

CONSTANTINE DOMBALIS, theologian and dean of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral, active in the National Conference of Christians and Jews Brotherhood;

JAROSLAV DRABEK, a survivor, former member of the Underground Czechoslovakia Against Nazi War Criminals and an attorney who prosecuted Nazi war criminals in Czechoslovakia;

KITTY DUKAKIS, president of the National Center for Genocide Studies, who was Chairman of the Holocaust Commission's Subcommittee on Education;

WILLARD FLETCHER, former chairman of the history department at the University of Delaware, who teaches seminars on the Holocaust and who assisted the Office of the Public Prosecutor in West Germany in gathering evidence against Nazi war criminals;

IRVIN FRANK, chairman of the board of Zochrim, Zachor: The Holocaust Resource Center, New York City, and past president of the Tulsa (Oklahoma) Jewish Community Council;

SOL GOLDSTEIN, & survivor, a businessman, and chairman of the Chicago Committee for Holocaust Commemoration;

ISAAC GOODFRIEND, a survivor, cantor of Ahavath Achim Congregation in Atlanta, Ga.;

ALFRED GOTTSCHALK, president of the Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, Ohio;

IRVING GREENBERG, a rabbi, author, and Holocaust scholar, director of the National Jewish Resource Center;

DOROTHY HEIGHT, national president of the National Council of Negro Women;

THEODORE HESBURGH, president of Notre Dame University;

RAUL HILBERG, McCullough professor of political science at the University of Vermont, author of "The Destruction of the European Jews";

JULIAN E. KULAS, a Chicago attorney and banker, chairman of the Helsinki Monitoring Committee of Chicago and of the Interfaith Group of the Jewish Federation of Chicago;

NORMAN LAMM, president of Yeshiva University in New York City, an author, lecturer, and rabbi, director of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congress of America;

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, president of the United Jewish Appeal, a New York businessman and philanthropist;

MILES LERMAN, a survivor, a New Jersey businessman, and vice chairman of the National State of Israel Bonds;

FRANKLIN LITTELL, chairman of the board of the National Institute on the Holocaust, a professor of religion at Temple University;

STEVEN LUDSIN, a New York attorney and investment banker, president of Remembrance of the Holocaust Foundation, on the board of directors of American Friends of Haifa University;

ALOYSIUS MAZEWSKI, a president of the Polish American Congress of Chicago and the Polish National Alliance;

BENJAMIN MEED, a survivor, a New York businessman, president of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance Organization;

INGEBORG G. MAUKSCH, distinguished professor of nursing at Vanderbilt University, active in community affairs and human rights causes;

SET MOMJIAN, a human rights activist who was a U.S. Representative to the U.N. General Assembly in 1978-79 and White House representative to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva in 1979;

JOHN T. PAWLIKOWSKI, professor of social ethics at Catholic Theological Union, a member of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Secretariat for Catholic-Jewish Relations;

BERNARD RASKAS, rabbi of Temple of Aaron Congregation in St. Paul, Minn., an author on Jewish affairs;

HADASSAH ROSENSAPT, a survivor, lecturer and author on the Holocaust;

BAYARD RUSTIN, president of the A. Phillip Randolph Educational Institute;

ABRAHAM SACHAR, chancellor and former president of Brandeis University;

EDWARD SANDERS, former Senior Adviser to the President, now an attorney in Los Angeles;

JULIUS SCHATZ, director of the National Commission on Jewish Life and Culture of the American Jewish Congress, active in various Holocaust organizations;

RICHARD SCHIFTER, an attorney and former president of the Maryland State Board of Education;

SIGMUND STROCHLITZ, a survivor, president of American Friends of Haifa University, where he endowed a chair in Holocaust studies;

KALMAN SULTANIK, a survivor, vice president of the World Jewish Congress, executive copresident of the World Conference of General Zionists;

MARK TALISMAN, director of the Washington Action Program for the Council of Jewish Federations and a founder and instructor at the John F. Kennedy Institute of Politics at Harvard University, who will serve as Vice Chairman of this Council;

GLENN E. WATTS, president of the Communications Workers of America;

ELIE WIESEL, a survivor, author, and scholar, who was Chairman of the Holocaust Commission, and will serve as Chairman of this Council;

SIGGI WILZIG, a survivor, a national Holocaust lecturer, and a businessman in New Jersey;

ELI ZBOROWSKI, a survivor, honorary president of the American Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp Inmates and Nazi Victims, member of the executive committee of Yad Vashem, and a New York businessman.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives has appointed five Members of the House to serve on this Council. They are:

REPRESENTATIVE JAMES J. BLANCHARD;

REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAM S. GREEN;

REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAM LEHMAN;

REPRESENTATIVE STEPHEN SOLARZ; and

REPRESENTATIVE SIDNEY R. YATES.

The President of the Senate has appointed five Senators as Members of this Council. They are:

SENATOR RUDY BOSCHWITZ;

SENATOR JOHN C. DANFORTH;

SENATOR HENRY M. JACKSON;

SENATOR CLABORNE PELL; and

SENATOR RICHARD STONE.

Jimmy Carter, United States Holocaust Memorial Council Appointment of the Membership. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/249927

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