Indelible Insights from American Presidents, Carved in Stone

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, is at once a stirring work of art and a powerful call to conscience. Words are central to this experience and many of them are integrated into the architectural design of the building.

Among the many notable figures whose quotes are engraved throughout the Museum are a selection of former United States presidents. Their words, featured below, highlight the unparalleled charge this Museum has to memorialize six million Jews and millions of other victims of the Nazi regime. They also remind us of our moral responsibility to build a better future.

A lithograph of President George Washington. —Library of Congress

“The government of the United States … gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

—George Washington’s letter “To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island,” dated August 17, 1790

President Harry Truman visits with American troops in the summer of 1945. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Randy Cole

“There are left in Europe 1,500,000 Jews, men, women and children, whom the ordeal has left homeless, hungry, sick, and without assistance. These, too, are victims of the crime for which retribution will be visited upon the guilty. But neither the dictates of justice nor that love of our fellowman which we are bidden to practice will be satisfied until the needs of these sufferers are met.”

—Harry S. Truman’s remarks to a delegation from the United Jewish Appeal on February 25, 1946.¹

General Dwight Eisenhower and General Troy Middleton tour the newly liberated Ohrdruf concentration camp on April 12, 1945. —National Archives

“The things I saw beggar description … The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were … overpowering … I made the visit deliberately in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’”

—Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a cable message to General George C. Marshall on April 15, 1945

On September 27, 1979, President Jimmy Carter shakes hands with Holocaust survivor Vladka Meed at a White House Rose Garden ceremony marking the official presentation of the report of the US Holocaust Commission. Also pictured is Benjamin Meed (center), who was a member of the commission’s advisory board. —Jimmy Carter Library

“Out of our memory … of the Holocaust we must forge an unshakable oath with all civilized people that never again will the world stand silent, never again will the world … fail to act in time to prevent this terrible crime of genocide. … we must harness the outrage of our own memories to stamp out oppression wherever it exists. We must understand that human rights and human dignity are indivisible.”

—Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States, at the presentation of the report of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, September 27, 1979

President Ronald Reagan speaks at the laying of the cornerstone ceremony of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on October 5, 1988. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum

“We who did not go their way owe them this. We must make sure that their deaths have posthumous meaning. We must make sure that from now until the end of days all humankind stares this evil in the face … and only then can we be sure it will never arise again.”

—Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the United States, at the cornerstone-laying ceremony for the Museum, October 5, 1988

US Holocaust Memorial Council Former Chairman Harvey Meyerhoff in conversation with President George H. W. Bush at the White House on the occasion of the 1989 Days of Remembrance commemoration in April. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum

“Here we will learn that each of us bears responsibility for our actions and for our failure to act. Here we will learn that we must intervene when we see evil arise. Here we will learn more about the moral compass by which we navigate our lives and by which countries will navigate the future.”

—George H. W. Bush, 41st president of the United States, February 15, 1991

President Bill Clinton (center), Elie Wiesel (right), and Harvey Meyerhoff (left) light the eternal flame outside on the Eisenhower Plaza during the dedication ceremony of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on April 22, 1993. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum

“This museum will touch the life of everyone who enters and leave everyone forever changed—a place of deep sadness and a sanctuary of bright hope; an ally of education against ignorance, of humility against arrogance, an investment in a secure future against whatever insanity lurks ahead. If this museum can mobilize morality, then those who have perished will thereby gain a measure of immortality.”

—William J. Clinton, 42nd president of the United States, at the dedication of the Museum, April 22, 1993

¹ From the Public Papers of the United States, Harry S. Truman, January 1–December 31, 1946 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1962), p. 131.