U.S. Attorney Martin Encourages Staff to Attend May 14 Federal Interagency Holocaust Remembrance Program

WASHINGTON – President Donald J. Trump’s U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia said he hoped his staff and partners with his office would participate with him at the 32nd Annual Federal Interagency Holocaust Remembrance Program.

“This year’s theme is ‘Courage Cannot Be Silenced,’ and the keynote speaker is Holocaust survivor Eugene Bergman, whose personal story is a compelling reminder of the horrors of the Shoah.

“In 1939, Bergman, a native of Poznan, Poland, was moved with his family to Lodz, as part of the Nazi ghetto policies, and there a German soldier struck him with the butt of his rifle as he was in the street with other children,” Martin said.

“Five days later, Bergman woke up from a coma completely deaf,” he said.

“For the rest of the war, Bergman was shuttled between ghettos and camps as the Nazis pursued their so-called ‘final solution,” he said.

After the war, Bergman threw himself into his education, becoming a master of five languages and the first deaf individual to earn a PhD in English.

“Bergman’s life story is full of sorrow and survival, but always in the context of his own courage that could not be silenced,” Martin said.

The program will be held Wednesday, May 14, 2025, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the Great Hall of the Robert F. Kennedy Main Building.

The Federal Interagency Holocaust Remembrance Program started at the U.S. Department of Education in 1994 to commemorate the Congressional Days of Remembrance—an annual, national, and civic commemoration of the Holocaust. This year’s program also coincides with both Jewish American Heritage Month and the 80th anniversary of U.S. troops liberating Nazi concentration camps.

For more information, please visit the Federal Inter-Agency Holocaust Remembrance Program. Sign-language interpretation will be provided.