The General Dwight David Eisenhower Plaza

General Dwight David Eisenhower, as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, led Allied armies to victory in battle, brought the Third Reich to an end, encountered its concentration camps, liberated the survivors, and bore witness to the Holocaust. At Ohrdruf Concentration Camp on April 15, 1945, Eisenhower said that what he saw defied description and that he made the visit deliberately so he could give firsthand evidence of starvation, cruelty, and bestiality if anyone later tried to dismiss such allegations as propaganda. Jimmy Carter, on September 27, 1979, called for an unshakable oath that never again would the world stand silent or fail to act in time to prevent genocide, and said that outrage at memory must be harnessed to stamp out oppression wherever it exists because human rights and human dignity are indivisible. Ronald Reagan, on October 5, 1988, said that those who did not go their way owe the dead posthumous meaning by ensuring that all humankind stares this evil in the face so that it will never arise again.

Washington, District of Columbia · United States