Mr. President, Madame Speaker, Elie Wiesel, distinguished guests.

Often in the face of horror, we are tempted by our own timidity--- by the assumption that the decisions that matter most take place on the exalted fields of geopolitics, at levels and distances beyond our reach.

But governments are run by individuals. In this great country, government is held accountable by individuals. Genocide is carried out by individuals, and individuals have the power to respond.

One individual did in 1943, at the height of the horror, from the unlikeliest of places. I say unlikely because John Pehle was an unknown 34 year old lawyer working at the United States Treasury Department.

Deeply troubled by the reports from Europe, he learned that the Romanian government had agreed to release some Jews and send them to Palestine in return for compensation. Unfortunately, the British refused. So later that year, Pehle and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau recommended that these same Jews be admitted temporarily to the US. Their idea was rejected.

This was 1943. Pehle was frustrated. He knew that over a year had passed since our State Department received the news that Germany planned to murder all the Jews of Europe. And Pehle had discovered that State Department officials were deliberately suppressing this information.

So he co-authored an 18-page memorandum to the Secretary of the Treasury. The Report noted that “Our State Department failed to take any …steps… to save any of these people. Although [it] has used the devices…..of making it appear that positive action could be expected, in fact nothing has been accomplished.” The memorandum’s shocking summary read: “Unless remedial steps of a drastic nature are taken…immediately... to prevent the complete extermination of the Jews…this Government will have to share for all time the responsibility for this extermination.”

Pehle and Morgenthau presented the memorandum to Franklin Roosevelt on January 17, 1944. Five days later FDR established the War Refugee Board and named John Pehle to lead it. His mandate was to rescue “victims of enemy oppression ..in imminent danger of death.”

Pehle tried every means he could. He attempted to get neutral countries to accept refugees. When the American ambassador to Spain refused to help, Pehle went directly to FDR. Eventually Spain issued visas to 2,000 Jews.

He persuaded the Swiss to protect a group of Jews trapped in Europe while waiting to enter the US.

He established a haven for 1,000 Jews at Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York.

And, through his efforts Raoul Wallenberg went to Hungary. Because in the heart of Europe, as late as the spring of 1944, there was a miracle. A major Jewish community was still intact. The Hungarian Jews.

But that miracle would end when the Germans invaded on March 19. A few days later, probably due to Pehle’s efforts, FDR warned the Hungarians in a statement that read, ‘in one of the blackest crimes in all history.. the wholesale systematic murder of the Jews … goes unabated every hour… That these innocent people should perish on the very eve of triumph over the barbarism which their persecution symbolizes, would be a major tragedy.”

And yet weeks later in May 1944, the Germans, aided by the Hungarians, began deportations. By July more than 430,000 had been sent to Auschwitz which was operating with startling efficiency—gas chambers killing 10,000 a day, ovens burning 500 an hour. 75% of Hungary’s Jews were murdered in 54 days, yet Pehle did not relent.

During the Hungarian deportations, the SS offered to exchange Jews for military goods, especially trucks. Knowing the Allies would never agree, Pehle urged negotiators to string the Germans along as much as possible in an attempt to save lives. He repeatedly recommended bombing the railroad lines to Auschwitz, but to no avail. And, he convinced General Eisenhower to issue a warning to the Germans not to kill Jews in concentration camps. Eisenhower released the statement but the reference to Jews was dropped.

The War Refugee Board was created almost a year and a half after the US Government knew about the plan to murder the Jews of Europe. John Pehle was just one individual in a massive bureaucracy that was focused on war and tinged with antisemitism.

Through the War Refugee Board, he managed to rescue 200,000. Yet, from the time the War Refugee Board was established until the end of the war, 770,000 Jews were murdered, including the Hungarian Jewish community. As Pehle said, “What we did was little enough. It was late. Late and little.”

And we would agree. Our government fell short. Tragically short. But an individual acted. A young lawyer in the Treasury Department. He acted not out of duty to his job, but out of responsibility to humanity.

Today, we remember the victims for whom there were no choices. Today, we recall those whose seemingly inconsequential decisions made the difference between life and death. And today, we honor a young, unknown lawyer named John Pehle, who 65 years ago, struggled against many obstacles in the simple belief – one to which we dedicate ourselves anew—that what you do matters.