The DEJOY\WOS Family Foundation supports the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC), a non-profit educational and human rights organization in the United States. The VOC was authorized by a unanimous Act of Congress in 1993 to educate Americans about the ideology, history and legacy of communism. The VOC was responsible for building the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, DC. and is a member of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience. Ambassador Aldona Woś is currently the Vice Chairman of the VOC Board of Trustees.
The DEJOY\WOS Family Foundation made a $2,000,000 leadership pledge to support the Victims of Communism Museum in Washington, DC, which hosted its grand opening on June 8, 2022. See News Release.
The new museum will serve as the free world’s central hub for the remembrance of the more than 100 million people who suffered and died under communist ideology, and the more than 1.5 billion people still living under totalitarian regimes. Ambassador Woś and Mr. DeJoy have been key allies and supporters of VOC since 2006 with Ambassador Woś serving on its board since 2009. Visit https://vocmuseum.org/.
On November 8, 2019, the DEJOY\WOS Family Foundation was a major supporter of the Triumph of Liberty Gala Dinner and Presentation of the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom, held at Union Station in Washington, D.C. The Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom is awarded each year to those individuals and institutions that have demonstrated a life-long commitment to freedom and democracy and opposition to communism and all other forms of tyranny. The 2019 Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom recipient was His Excellency Joachim Gauck.
As a Lutheran pastor behind the Iron Curtain, Joachim Gauck led weekly prayers for peace that helped initiate popular resistance to the communist regime and eventually gave rise to the protest demonstrations in 1989. A co-founder of the New Forum opposition movement, Gauck was elected to the first free East German parliament in 1990 and oversaw the dissolution of the Ministry of State Security. From 2012 to 2017, he served as the 11th president of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The DEJOY\WOS Family Foundation invited current and alumni students from the Ashbrook Scholars Program to join them at the Gala Dinner. See News Release.
The DEJOY\WOS Family Foundation also supports the VOC Witness Project, a collection of videos that tell the tragic and powerful stories of the victims of communism, past and present―from the Killing Fields of Cambodia to the labor camps of the Soviet Union and the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square. Visit https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/witness.
Victims of Communism Meet With President Trump
Ambassador Aldona Woś (far left) with President Donald Trump and a delegation of victims of communism in the White House Oval Office. – November 7, 2019 PHOTO CREDIT: Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian
On November 7, 2019, Ambassador Aldona Woś and a delegation of victims of communism, organized by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, visited President Trump in the Oval Office as the White House commemorated the National Day for the Victims of Communism.
“I want to express our ‘thank you’ to President Trump for honoring the memory of 100 million people who died and were persecuted under the communist regimes, under the failed ideology of communism,” Woś said.
Ambassador Woś lived in Poland when it was under communist rule and now serves as vice chairman of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships. Wos previously served as U.S. Ambassador to Estonia under President George W. Bush, and is currently the Vice Chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation Board of Trustees.
See News Release.
