Louis remains a symbol to all of us who believe that society must never close its eyes to the victims of genocide. torture. and other gross violations of human rights and international law. Had the United States government not ignored the plight of the St. Louis refugees sixty years ago. had it substituted compassion and empathy for bureaucracy and rigidity. the children of that ship might still be alive today. .While we cannot rectify the wrongs of generations ago. we can apply the lesson of the St. Louis to the crises of today. In the Europe of 1999. innocent civilians are once again being deported. abused. raped and murdered. While the scale of Serbian atrocities in Kosovo does not approach the enormity of the Holocaust. the precedent that would be set by ignoring this ethnic cleansing cannot be tolerated. As Benjamin Meed. one of Americas most prominent Holocaust survivors. noted at the Days of Remembrance ceremony: "All of us must remain vigilantalways aware. always on guard against those who are determined to destroy innocent life for no other reason than birthright." Benjamin Meed was born in Warsaw.
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refugees deported