Obama at Shoah: President Obama accepted the Shoah
Foundation’s Ambassador of Humanity Award from Steven Spielberg tonight during
a ceremony at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza. Following some jokes from host
Conan O’Brien and acoustic takes on set from Bruce Springsteen (“The Promised
Land” and a haunting “Dancing In The Dark”), Spielberg presented the president
with the honor, after which Obama gave a heartfelt and somber speech before a
crowd of about 1,300, according to the White House pool report. He didn’t touch
on any subjects directly related to the entertainment industry, but the crowd
that included many Hollywood heavy-hitters was moved by its universal themes of
violence, war and intolerance. “The work of this foundation,” he said, “the
testimonies of survivors like those with us tonight, also remind us that the
purpose of memory is not simply to preserve the past; it is to protect the
future.” It was the second stop on the president’s visit to Los Angeles.
Earlier in the evening, he spoke at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser
hosted by Alan
and Cindy Horn at their Bel-Air home. The mood was much lighter for the
roughly 90 guests, including Jeffrey Katzenberg and Barbra
Streisand, who shelled out $64,800 a couple. They heard the president
give what amounted to a stump speech that also eschewed any mention of showbiz.
Obama will stay overnight before leaving for San Diego in the late morning. A
full transcript of his Shoah Foundation speech is at the bottom of the original
post.
4TH UPDATE, 10:15 PM: Host Conan
O’Brien kicked off the Shoah Foundation event where President Obama was
being honored with a few zingers.
“Whoever Steven [Spielberg] suckered to tell jokes at this event is a true
idiot,” he said in his opening remarks. The late-night host teased Obama about
the traffic gridlock his visit caused. “You left Washington six hours ago, but
I left Burbank seven hours ago.” But O’Brien got one of USC Shoah Foundation's
20th Anniversary Gala - Showthe night’s biggest laughs when he mentioned
Spielberg’s efforts to record Holocaust survivors and other victims of
genocide. O’Brien said the filmmaker “was recording evidence of intolerance
long before Donald Sterling’s girlfriend.” Obama was seen laughing at the
remark. The TBS host also acknowledged the philanthropists and other
humanitarians in the room before reminding everyone of the true nature of
Hollywood. “I’m also told there are some people from CAA here, so that evens it
out,” he said to a huge laugh. “They don’t represent me, so I don’t care.” He
then introduced Bruce Springsteen, who played a couple of acoustic numbers
including a haunting version of “Dancing In The Dark.” As he introduced
Spielberg after the performance, O’Brien recalled a lunch they’d had when he
first moved to LA in 2009 for what ended up being a short stint hosting The
Tonight Show. “Steven took me on a tour of his awards,” he said. “It took 5
hours.”
Spielberg then took the podium. “Everywhere from
Syria to southern Sudan, the world has yet to learn the lessons,” he said of
genocide and war during his introduction of Obama.”This program exists because
we know the future can be re-written.” Then he introduced the president, who
gave a somber and heartfelt speech that ran about 15 minutes.
“Memory has become a sacred duty of all people of
good will,” Obama said after accepting the Ambassador of Humanity Award from
Spielberg. The president passionately praised genocide survivors in the packed
ballroom as “inspirations of hope.” He also praised the foundation’s work
capturing on video the survivors’ stories “Recording the memories that would be
lost to time. … They turn never forget into never again.”
He later said, “It’s up to us to search our own
hearts for those stories that have no place in our world.” The president asked
the crowd to “erode” the destructive forces of anti-Semitism and other bigotry
and injustice. “Drop by drop by drop … never forget, never again,” said Obama,
who mention in closing the abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls in Nigeria and
the civil war in Syria.
3RD UPDATE, 8:11 PM: The White House pool report says
President Obama’s motorcade arrived at the Shoah Foundation at 7:50 PM. Obama
now is at Hyatt Regency Century Plaza to accept an Ambassador of Humanity Award
from Steven Spielberg. Conan O’Brien and Bruce Springsteen are his warmup acts.
The president entered the ballroom around 8:10 PM accompanied by Spielberg to
huge applause. Obama shook hands and greeted people in the VIP tables. He also
reached out to nearby Samuel L. Jackson for a long handshake, and some words
between the two men that left POTUS laughing as he walked away.
Earlier tonight he spoke for about 15 minutes at the
DNC fundraiser hosted by Alan and Cindy Horn. The
roughly 90 guests included Jeffrey Katzenberg, Barbra Streisand and James
Brolin. He gave what amounted to a stump speech, talking about the midterm
elections, jobs, the Affordable Care Act, energy, the Middle East, equal pay,
climate change – but nothing about Hollywood or show business (or, say, the
Sultan of Brunei or Donald Sterling, for that matter). “Well, let me start by
thanking Cindy and Alan for the incredible hospitality,” Obama said. “We are so
grateful to you — and arranging this nice weather. It’s a little cool for L.A. I know we’ve got some folks in blankets here,
but for a Chicagoan, it feels pretty good.
It’s pretty balmy.”
There are a number of Hollywood heavy hitters at the
Shoah event, including Fox Filmed Entertainment CEO Jim Gianopolus, NBCU Vice-Chairman Ron Meyer,
Universal Filmed Entertainment Chairman Jeff Shell,
21st Century Fox Co-COO James Murdoch, Katzenberg and his political adviser Andy Spahn, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos, Everybody Love Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal and Octavia Spencer.
Schlinder’s List actor Liam
Neeson started off the evening with remembrances of the making of the
1993 film and how it lead to Spielberg forming the Shoah Foundation the next
year. [Shit.] A short video was screened about the early years of the
Foundation and its efforts to film Holocaust survivors’ stories and the stories
of survivors of more recent genocides for future generations to learn from.
2ND UPDATE, 6:08 PM: The president has arrived at
Alan and Cindy Horn’s house in Bel-Air for the $64,800-a-couple DNC fundraiser.
About 90 guests are expected. (Check out the invite that went out last month
here.) Here’s a snippet from the White House pool report:
The motorcade wound its way toward Bel Air along
Beverly Glen Blvd. There were huge crowds along the route at several
intersections, as well as a few onlookers on their lawns in the residential
neighborhood of Beverly Glen.
UPDATED, 5:13 PM: Air Force One was wheels down at
LAX at about 4:45 PM, and the street closures for President Obama’s visit are
in effect — just in time for rush hour. Roads are closed until 6 p.m. in the
areas near Motor Avenue and Pico Boulevard. Beverly Glen Road and Santa Monica
Boulevard also are affected. Closures will hit the areas around Sunset
Boulevard and Beverly Glen from 6-8 PM and around Santa Monica Boulevard and
Avenue of the Stars from 6-11 PM. The president was greeted by LA Mayor Eric
Garcetti, who was in D.C. on the weekend for the White House Correspondents’
Dinner. Obama arrived at his first destination via Marine One at 5:14 PM: a
softball field in the tony town of Cheviot Hills. His motorcade now is en route
to the Horn fundraiser.
PREVIOUSLY, 3:34 PM: As the midterm elections start
to come into view, President Obama is heading to LA today for a series of
fundraisers to fatten the Democrats’ war chest and pick up an award tonight
from Steven Spielberg in front of a Hollywood heavyweight crowd at USC Shoah
Foundation’s 20th anniversary gala.
Obama is scheduled to land at
LAX around 5 PM and start his overnight visit Bloomberg Breakfast - 2014
Tribeca Film Festival with a $64,800-a-couple DNC gathering at the Bel-Air home
of Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn and his wife Cindy. With his last
visit here for fundraisers and a stop at top bundler Jeffrey Katzenberg‘s
DreamWorks Animation campus in November, this marks Obama’s 17th trip to LA
since taking office in early 2009. Going where the money is — and where traffic
congestion is sure to follow on the Westside — this is the 14th SoCal swing by
the President to get dough off his loyal Hollywood constituency since moving
into the White House.
Obama is bringing part of the Blue State band with
him today. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will join the
President at the Horn event for the bluntly titled “House Senate Victory Fund.”
Obama has a $32,400-a-ticket intimate roundtable fundraiser scheduled for
tomorrow morning at the Beverly Hilton as well before getting back on Air Force
One for more fundraisers in San Diego and San Jose. All in all, sources tell me
the Democrats hope to raise more than $6 million off the California swing.
(We’ll update throughout the night)
Of course this visit by POTUS isn’t all just a cash
grab.
Tonight’s fundraiser will be followed by Obama
speaking and being honored at the USC Shoah Foundation’s Ambassadors for
Humanity gala tonight. Spielberg, who founded the organization to document the
video stories of Holocaust survivors after making his Oscar-winner Schindler’s
List, will be presenting Obama with the group’s Ambassador For Humanity Award
at the TNT-sponsored event, which comes one day after Israel celebrated its
66th Independence Day. But there will be a lot of other power players in the
room. The event is co-chaired by DWA boss and big time Obama supporter Obama
Discusses Economy At DreamWorks Animation Facility In California Katzenberg and his wife Marilyn, David Geffen, Star Wars creator George
Lucas and wife and DWA board member Mellody Hobson and NBCU Vice-Chairman Ron Meyer (who was at the WHCD this past weekend) and his wife Kelly.
Everybody Love Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal and his wife
Monica are also co-chairs as are Friends
co-creator Marta Kauffman and husband Michael Skloff. Rosenthal held a DNC fundraiser featuring First Lady
Michelle Obama at his home in late January while Kauffman was set to host a
fundraiser in September of last year that kept getting postponed and eventually
moved to Rosenthal’s due to world and Washington D.C. events.
With tickets going from $1500 for a single to $100,000
for a 1-seat VIP table, the gala comes just days after the White House
Correspondents’ Dinner and the train wreck of a routine by headliner Joel
McHale. Set to speak around 8:30 PM or so, Obama will be reunited tonight with
last year’s WHCD star Conan O’Brien. The TBS late nighter is set to host the
USC Shoah event. Schindler List lead Liam Neeson will be there and Brice
Springsteen will perform at around 7:30 PM.
Even with the Boss stepping to the mic, there’s a lot
more real star power is off stage with Disney boss Bob Iger and wife Willow
Bay, who is slated to head USC’s School of Journalism, serving as a
Vice-Chairs. They are joined as Vice-Chairs by fellow big Democratic
contributors JJ Abrams & Katie McGrath, IAC boss Barry Diller, Moneyball
producer Sidney Kimmel and his wife Caroline, Barbra Streisand and James Brolin
and Participant Media’s Jeff Skoll, the company’s CEO Jim Berk and his wife Jane among others. The Shoah gala’s
benefit committee is no less wattage with Rupert
Murdoch, Sumner Redstone, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman and wife Debbie, Fox Filmed Entertainment CEO Jim Gianopulos and his wife Ann, Paramount’s Brad Grey and wife Cassandra,
Warner Bros CEO Kevin Tsujihara and wife Sandy, WB
Chair Barry Meyer and wife Wendy all
on board. DreamWorks Co-Chair/CEO Stacey Snider, LucasFilm President Kathleen Kennedy and
producer Frank
Marshall, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson,
Tyler Perry, Robert Downey Jr and producer wife Susan are also on the
Benefit Committee as is TriStar Productions boss Tom Rothman,
who Obama named to the National Council of The Arts late last year, and
his wife Jessica among others.
Here is the transcript of the president’s speech
tonight at the Shoah Foundation event:
Thank you so much. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank
you so much. Please, please, everybody have a seat. Well, thank you, Steven,
for your incredibly generous words, for this great honor, for your friendship,
and most importantly, for the extraordinary work which brings us here all
tonight. To
Robert Katz and all the members of the board and staff of the
Shoah Foundation; to President
Max Nikias and everybody at USC; to all the
distinguished guests and to all the friends that I see in this audience — it is
an incredible honor to be with you as we pay tribute to a remarkable
institution and one that makes claim on our moral imagination. Being here with
you tonight, I’m taken back to the visit to Buchenwald that I took in the very
first months of my presidency. And I was there with my dear friend,
Elie Wiesel. As most of you know, he who had endured
that camp as a teenager. And we walked among the guard towers and the barbed
wire. We saw the ovens and the crematorium. We saw the memorial to the
prisoners, a steel plate heated to the temperature of the human body, as a
reminder of our common humanity. And at the end of our visit, as we stood
outside the place where his father and so many other souls had perished, Elie
spoke these words — he said: “Memory has become a sacred duty of all people of
goodwill.” Memory has become a sacred duty of all people of goodwill. And
that’s what brings us here tonight. That’s the duty that Steven and all of you
embrace — the sacred duty of memory. Now, just a few decades ago, many
survivors of the Shoah were reluctant to share their stories. But one survivor
living here in Los Angeles, a leather goods merchant named
Poldek Pfefferberg
insisted on telling anybody who would listen about the man who had saved
his life — a man named Oskar Schindler. And thanks to Poldek’s persistence,
Schindler’s story was published as a novel, and the world eventually came to
see and understand the Holocaust like never before — in Steven’s remarkable
film, Schindler’s List, brought to life in a masterful way by Liam Neeson. And
we were reminded that the Holocaust was not a matter of distant history or
abstract horror. The voices — the memories — of survivors became immediate, and
intimate, became a part of all of us.
I loved what the
teacher said in the video about how it entered into our DNA. That’s what
stories do. We’re story-telling animals. That’s what Steven does. That’s
what Bruce does — tells a story that stitches up our fates with the fates of
others. And that film gave us each a stake in that terrible history, and a
stake in ensuring such atrocities never happen again. Now, if the story had
ended there, it would have been enough — dayenu. But Steven didn’t stop with
Schindler’s List, because there were too many other stories to tell. So he
created this foundation to undertake what he called “a rescue mission” —
preserving the memories that would otherwise be lost to time. Over the past two
decades, you’ve recorded tens of thousands of interviews in dozens of countries
and languages; documented the experience not only of the Holocaust, but of
atrocities before and since. As you heard tonight with Celina’s incredible
eloquence, you freed voices that could tell their own story in their own way.
And as
Michelle
Clark described so powerfully this evening, you’ve turned that testimony
into tools that can be used by scholars and students all around the world. Now,
Steven, I know that for you — like so many here — this is deeply personal. You
lost distant relatives in the Holocaust, and heard your mother pass on stories
told by survivors. And as you said just a few days ago, the story of the Shoah
is the story that you were put on this Earth to tell. So, to you, to everybody
at the Shoah Foundation — and for all that you’ve done, for setting alight an
eternal flame of testimony that can’t be extinguished and cannot be denied, we
express our deepest gratitude. (Applause.) Of course, none of these stories
could be preserved without the men and women with the courage to tell them. And
I think sometimes how hard it must be to return to those moments, to remember
those darkest of days, to recount how loved ones — husbands, wives, sons,
daughters — were taken away. And as Steven mentioned, my great-uncle was a
soldier in the 89th Infantry Division, helping to liberate Ohrdruf, a part of
Buchenwald. And what he saw during the war left him so shaken that, upon his
return to the States, he could not speak of his memories for years to come. We
didn’t have a word for it back then, but he returned and closed himself off for
months, so shaken was he just to witness what had happened, much less
experience it. So I want to say a special word to the survivors who are with us
this evening — not just to the Holocaust, but as Steve noted, survivors of
other unimaginable crimes. Every day that you have lived, every child and
grandchild that your families have brought into this world has served as the
ultimate rebuke to evil, and the ultimate expression of love and hope. And you
are an inspiration to every single one of us. And on behalf of all of us, thank
you for the example of your lives, and sharing your stories with us and the
world. Thank you. (Applause.) We are grateful to you. Now, let me add that, as
Americans, we’re proud to be a country that welcomed so many Holocaust
survivors in the wake of World War II. As President, I’m proud that we’re doing
more, as Steven noted, to stand with Holocaust survivors in America. We
announced
Aviva
Sufian as our first-ever special envoy to help support Holocaust
survivors living in the United States. I’m pleased that Aviva is here tonight.
(Applause.) We’ve proposed a new Survivor Assistance Fund to help Holocaust
survivors in our country live in dignity and free from poverty. We’re already
working with members of Congress and many of your organizations on this
project, and tonight I invite more of you to join us. We need to keep faith
with these survivors who already have given so much. The work of this
foundation, the testimonies of survivors like those with us tonight, also
remind us that the purpose of memory is not simply to preserve the past; it is
to protect the future. (Applause.) We tell stories — we’re compelled to tell
stories — they’re stories that bring out the best of us, and they’re stories that
bring out the worst. The voices of those recorded and unrecorded, those who
survived and those who perished, call upon us — implore us and challenge us —
to turn “Never Forget” into “Never Again.” We only need to look at today’s
headlines — the devastation of Syria, the murders and kidnappings in Nigeria,
sectarian conflict, the tribal conflicts — to see that we have not yet
extinguished man’s darkest impulses. There are some bad stories out there that
are being told to children, and they’re learning to hate early. They’re
learning to fear those who are not like them early. And none of the tragedies
that we see today may rise to the full horror of the Holocaust — the
individuals who are the victims of such unspeakable cruelty, they make a claim
on our conscience. They demand our attention, that we not turn away, that we
choose empathy over indifference and that our empathy leads to action. And
that’s not always easy. One of the powerful things about Schindler’s story was
recognizing that we have to act even where there is sometimes ambiguity; even
when the path is not always clearly lit, we have to try. And that includes
confronting a rising tide of anti-Semitism around the world. We’ve seen attacks
on Jews in the streets of major Western cities, public places marred by
swastikas. From some foreign governments we hear the worst kinds of
anti-Semitic scapegoating. In Ukraine, as Steven mentioned, we saw those
disgusting pamphlets from masked men calling on Jews to register. And
tragically, we saw a shooting here at home, in Overland Park in Kansas. And it
would be tempting to dismiss these as isolated incidents, but if the memories
of the Shoah survivors teach us anything, it is that silence is evil’s greatest
co-conspirator. And it’s up to us — each of us, every one of us — to forcefully
condemn any denial of the Holocaust. It’s up to us to combat not only
anti-Semitism, but racism and bigotry and intolerance in all their forms, here
and around the world. It’s up to us to speak out against rhetoric that threatens
the existence of a Jewish homeland and to sustain America’s unshakeable
commitment to Israel’s security. (Applause.) And it is up to us to search our
own hearts — to search ourselves — for those stories that have no place in this
world. Because it’s easy sometimes to project out and worry about others and
their hatreds and their bigotries and their blind spots. It’s not always as
easy for us to examine ourselves. Standing up to anti-Semitism is not simply
about protecting one community or one religious group. There is no such thing
as “targeted” hatred. In Overland Park, a man went to a Jewish Community Center
and a nursing home named “Village Shalom” and started shooting — and none of
the people he murdered were Jewish. Two were Methodist. One was Catholic. All
were innocent. We cannot eliminate evil from every heart, or hatred from every
mind. But what we can do, and what we must do, is make sure our children and
their children learn their history so that they might not repeat it.
(Applause.) We can teach our children the hazards of tribalism. We can teach
our children to speak out against the casual slur.
We
can teach them there is no “them,” there’s only “us.” And here in
America, we can celebrate a nation in which Christians and Muslims go to
Jewish community centers, and where Jews go to Church vigils — a nation where,
through fits and starts, through sacrifice and individual courage, we have
struggled to hear the truth and live out the truth that
Dr. King described — that
“injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, that we are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” By
keeping the memories alive, by telling stories, by hearing those stories, we
can do our part to fulfill the mitzvah, the commandment of saving a life. I
think of
Pinchas
Gutter, a man who lived through the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and survived
the Majdanek death camp. Today he serves as a volunteer educator at the Shoah
Foundation. “I tell my story,” he says, “for the purpose of improving humanity,
drop by drop by drop. Like a drop of water falls on a stone and erodes it, so,
hopefully, by telling my story over and over again I will achieve the purpose
of making the world a better place to live in.” Those are the words of one
survivor — performing that “sacred duty” of memory — that will echo throughout
eternity. Those are good words for all of us to live by. I have this remarkable
title right now — President of the United States — and yet every day when I
wake up, and I think about young girls in Nigeria or children caught up in the
conflict in Syria — when there are times in which I want to reach out and save
those kids — and having to think through what levers, what power do we have at
any given moment, I think, “drop by drop by drop,” that we can erode and wear
down these forces that are so destructive; that we can tell a different story. And
because of your work — because of your work, Steven, and the work of all who
supported you — our children, and their children, and their children’s children
will hear from the survivors, but they’ll also hear from the liberators, the
Righteous Among the Nations. And because of your work, their stories, years and
decades from now, will still be wearing down bigotry, and eroding apathy, and
opening hearts, drop by drop by drop. And as those hearts open, that empowers
those of us in positions of power — because even the President can’t do these
things alone. Drop by drop by drop. That’s the power of stories. And as a
consequence, the world will be a better place and the souls will be bound up in
the bonds of eternal life. Their memories will be a blessing and they will help
us make real our solemn vow: Never Forget. Never Again.
So thank you,
Steven, for your incredible work. God bless you. God bless the United States of
America. Thank you. (Applause.)
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