Subject: Initial Thoughts
From: "Eric Schwerin" <[email-masked]>
To: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>, "Alexander S. Mackler" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2016 20:30:44 -0400

Hunter/Alex-

Not looking for any edits yet, but just jotting down some thoughts while they are still on my mind.  Will work on it more this weekend and would love both of your comments when I send you something more polished.  But in general, this is the direction I am headed unless you think otherwise.

———

Twenty-five years ago I had the opportunity to live in Prague and teach English.  It was an exciting time to be in Central and Eastern Europe.  The Wall had just fallen and there was optimism about Europe’s future.  The countries of Central and Eastern Europe were able to examine their own histories and present them in the way that they found most intellectually honest.    After a year living in Prague I returned to the U.S. optimistic about a united Europe that would finally be freed from the aftermath of WWII but committed to remembering its shared past.    European history was at an incredible inflection point and it was time of great promise.

Now, returning today to Central and Eastern Europe we see a very different place.   We see a Europe that seems to be ignoring the lessons of history and slipping into the laziness of bigotry and hate.    Those characteristics aren’t unique to Europe, we see them in the United States and other countries around the world too.  That’s why what we do here today is so important.   It is vital that we remember the atrocities of the past so that we are not doomed to repeat them. 

The horrors that happened on this spot 75 years ago today and spots like this throughout Europe can never happen again.   We can never again single out one group of people with our hate just because we are too scared of the change that comes with modernization and globalization.

We are at another inflection point in our shared histories.   We need to get back to the spirit of optimism I saw in Europe twenty five years ago and be able to embrace the future and the exciting changes that will come with it while at the same time remembering and learning the lessons of our past.   Despite evidence to the contrary around the world, I am optimistic about the future because of the incredible work that has been done here in Latvia on this project and the support it has received from the top levels of the Latvian government, business and religious community. 

I am proud that President Obama and Vice President Biden appointed me to be a member of the U.S. Commission on the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad because the Commission is doing the important work to make sure there are more memorials like this one throughout Europe.  The more opportunities we have to commemorate the past the more opportunities we have to avoid reliving the past. 

 

Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Advisors, LLC
1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1880
[email-masked] <x-msg://59/[email-masked]>
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