VOA标准英语2013--US Holocaust Museum Contemplates Future Without Survivors

 

US Holocaust¹ Museum Contemplates² Future Without Survivors⁴

They once were treated as less than human, but here these Holocaust survivors were heroes.

And that meant a lot to Tamara Wohl, who spent the first years of her life in a concentration camp. "I'm extremely proud, and very proud of all the work that the people of the museum did. I'm very grateful," she said.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was dedicated⁵ in 1993 by then-President Bill Clinton and author and survivor³ Elie Wiesel.

Both returned on Monday for the museum's 20th Anniversary.  Wiesel recalled how at the time he admonished⁶ the president. "And I spoke⁷ to you about Yugoslavia - I had just come back from there - what we must do, in the name of our memory," she stated.

Clinton recalled that Wiesel and other Jews, haunted by the slaughter⁸ of six million of their own , pushed for intervention⁹ to stop the massacre¹⁰ of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo.

He said the Holocaust Museum is unlike Washington's other monuments.

"The Holocaust memorial will be our conscience, will be here as our conscience, from now, forever," Clinton said. "The museum must look to the future and make sure that as direct memories fade away, that the records, the pictures and the stories never die."

There are more than 800 Holocaust survivors here today and 130 American World War II veterans. But the day is approaching when the museum will have to tell the story of what happened without them.

Szoszana Schwarz was one of many survivors who came and donated some family documents to the museum.

Susan Bachrach is curator of a new exhibit on collaboration¹¹ and complicity in the Holocaust. "An awful lot of people think, based on visitor testing - that it's all about Hitler," she said. "But it needed many helpers all over Europe."

Mike Abramowitz directs the museum's genocide prevention program. He says the exhibit also honors gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews, to teach a moral lesson. "What you do matters, that individuals have an agency to do good, or to do evil," he explained. "To be a bystander or to be a rescuer."

World War II veteran Alfred Henick understands why young people need to be reminded. "I remember when I was a kid in the 1930s in elementary school, and they used to teach us about World War I. To me it was ancient history," he stated. "World War I, it was only 15 years prior."

He said that's why this museum is needed, to ensure that the Holocaust is never forgotten.

1 holocaust   

n.大破坏；大屠杀

参考例句：

• The Auschwitz concentration camp always remind the world of the holocaust.奥辛威茨集中营总是让世人想起大屠杀。
• Ahmadinejad is denying the holocaust because he's as brutal as Hitler was.内贾德否认大屠杀，因为他像希特勒一样残忍。

2 contemplates   

深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的第三人称单数 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想

参考例句：

• She contemplates leaving for the sake of the kids. 她考虑为了孩子而离开。
• Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them. 事物的美存在于细心观察它的人的头脑中。

3 survivor   

n.生存者，残存者，幸存者

参考例句：

• The sole survivor of the crash was an infant.这次撞车的惟一幸存者是一个婴儿。
• There was only one survivor of the plane crash.这次飞机失事中只有一名幸存者。

4 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

5 dedicated   

adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的

参考例句：

• He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
• His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。

6 admonished   

v.劝告( admonish的过去式和过去分词 )；训诫；（温和地）责备；轻责

参考例句：

• She was admonished for chewing gum in class. 她在课堂上嚼口香糖，受到了告诫。
• The teacher admonished the child for coming late to school. 那个孩子迟到，老师批评了他。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

8 slaughter   

n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀

参考例句：

• I couldn't stand to watch them slaughter the cattle.我不忍看他们宰牛。
• Wholesale slaughter was carried out in the name of progress.大规模的屠杀在维护进步的名义下进行。

9 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

10 massacre   

n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀

参考例句：

• There was a terrible massacre of villagers here during the war.在战争中，这里的村民惨遭屠杀。
• If we forget the massacre,the massacre will happen again!忘记了大屠杀，大屠杀就有可能再次发生！

11 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。