Yad Vashem is the memorial the Jewish people established in 1953 as the world's center for documenting, researching and remembering the deaths of millions during World War II.
Its collection of evidence generates all kinds of responses, and Gov. Mike Huckabee, regarded as a possible GOP candidate for president in 2016, recently told an audience of a comment at the site by an 11-year-old needs to be kept in mind.
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It was at a dinner for the Endowment for Middle East Truth that he told the story of a father taking his young daughter to Yad Vashem, reviewing the exhibits documenting the atrocities and hoping that she would be able to understand.
The Jerusalem museum depicts the horrors inflicted on children as well as on men and women.
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Huckabee said the recounting of the nightmare of the Warsaw ghetto and the portrayals of the Nazi death camps left the girl silent.
In a guestbook at the conclusion of the visit, Huckabee said, the little girl wrote a simple question: "Why didn't somebody do something?"
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"That's all she wrote," Huckabee said, revealing that he was the father, and his daughter now is grown and has her own children.
"The father never, ever had to ask why do people need to stand up and speak up when lies and persecution are happening, whether they're happening to you or not. If they happen to someone else, it's only a matter of time before it happens to you," he said.
Huckabee said that one day he will "take those grandchildren to Israel, and I hope that they too will understand that they have to be the somebodies willing to do the something."
Hear Huckabee tell the story:
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