Lawmakers push for congressional honor for Warsaw Ghetto Uprising participants
Lawmakers are making a push to award a Congressional Gold Medal, Congress’ highest honor, to participants in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which took place 80 years ago this year.
Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA), the bill’s lead sponsor, told Jewish Insider that the inspiration for the initiative came from a trip he made to Poland last year, during which he discussed the subject with U.S. Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski and visited Warsaw’s POLIN Museum, which chronicles the history of Polish Jews.
There the two men agreed, Keating said, that a gold medal would be an “extraordinary” way to commemorate the anniversary of the uprising.
“The uprising was a courageous response, given the atrocities of the Nazis during that period. People just coming up, without arms, without weapons, to stand up, showing their resistance to them at terrible cost,” Keating said. “It shows, at a time of enormous brutal atrocities, how the human spirit and courage will rise up from the civilian side to resist. And I think it’s one of the most important lessons that is so relevant today.”
more...
