SWC Honors: Jerry Bruckheimer, Gabby Giffords & others receive Medals of Valor

"I know I am privileged to stand here tonight because my parents were fortunate enough to immigrate to the United States before the Second World War.They were lucky to get out of Germany when they did, because several of my mother’s brothers and sisters did not survive Hitler. My parents never forgotthe safety and freedom, which their new country allowed them, and neither have I."

“To be honored by such an extraordinary organization as the Simon Wiesenthal Center is deeply moving and very humbling. The Center’s worldwide defensesof human rights, and its remarkable Museums of Tolerance in Los Angeles and New York, are powerful tools against Anti-Semitism and racial hatred of everykind….”

- Jerry Bruckheimer, film and television producer accepting the SWC’s 2012 Humanitarian Award for his support of the WiesenthalCenter, its Museum of Tolerance and other humanitarian causes.

Photo: Rabbi Marvin Hier, SWC Dean and Founder; Jerry Bruckheimer; CSI Miami star, Emily Proctor; Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO Dreamworks Animation & SWCTrustee; Ron Meyer, NBC Universal Studios Chief & SWC Trustee; Rabbi Meyer May, SWC Execitive Director and David O’Connor Creative ArtistAgency Managing Partner. Dinner chairs not pictured, Disney Chief Bob Iger and CBS Chief Les Moonves.
Photo: Marissa Roth

Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, received Medals of Valor (TOP), as well as Holocaust survivorElisabeth Mann (L), who, following her liberation from Auschwitz, became a beloved teacher and mentor to fellow teenagers and children who, like her,lost their families to the Nazis; and members of the Tuskegee Airmen (L-R): Edward E. Tillmon, Jerry T. Hodges, Levi H. Thornhill, Ted G. LumpkinJr., the all-black squad of American pilots and crews who courageously fought for the U.S. in WW II despite facing racism and segregation athome.