2016 -- H 8175

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     STATE OF RHODE ISLAND

IN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

JANUARY SESSION, A.D. 2016

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H O U S E   R E S O L U T I O N

COMMEMORATING "HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY" ON MAY 5, 2016

     Introduced By: Representatives Ackerman, Regunberg, Amore, Shekarchi, and Handy

     Date Introduced: May 05, 2016

     Referred To: House read and passed

     WHEREAS, Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah), is a solemn day of

remembrance honoring the victims of the Holocaust and those who showed resistance and

amazing heroism during this horrendous period in our world history. Seventy years ago, Soviet

forces and shortly thereafter, Allied forces, liberated Auschwitz and other concentration camps,

liberating thousands of suffering and starving prisoners; and

     WHEREAS, Holocaust is the term used to refer to the period in world history from 1933

to 1945, before and during World War II, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazis systematically and

barbarically persecuted and murdered nearly six million Jews and another five million non-Jews

throughout Europe because they were perceived to be "racially inferior" and "life unworthy of

life"; and

     WHEREAS, The infamous and brutal killing grounds of Auschwitz, Buchenwald,

Dachau and Belson, today house the unnatural quiet and ghostly calm of somber rows of sanitized

barracks and rusting ovens, and stand as speechless memorials to the six million Jews and eleven

million total victims who succumbed to the deliberate Nazi program of genocide that was the

Holocaust; and

     WHEREAS, This year marks the 73rd Anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

and 53rd Anniversary of the dedication of the Memorial to the Six Million. The citizens of Rhode

Island, having our own rich heritage of resistance and intolerance for those who would trample

individual liberty and dignity, applaud the courageous efforts of the ghetto residents for whom

day to day survival was a relentless struggle. Their brave actions in April and May of 1943 stand

as testimony to a rare and indomitable human spirit and extraordinary courage exhibited in the

darkest hours of man's inhumanity; and

     WHEREAS, Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day to make a special effort to remember

Zachor. It is a time to applaud the men and women who endured and who bravely rebuilt lives

that had been so cruelly shattered. It is also a time to acknowledge, with admiration, those heroes

who risked and often lost their own lives in order to save others; and

     WHEREAS, In the words of famed writer Elie Wiesel, "There may be times when we are

powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." Rhode

Islanders and people of all nations must take the time to remember the millions of men, women

and children who were slaughtered simply because of their beliefs and their heritage, or their

strengths or their frailties, and we must firmly avow that the atrocities of the Holocaust will never

be repeated; now, therefore be it

     RESOLVED, That this House of Representatives of the State of Rhode Island Providence

Plantations hereby commemorates "Holocaust Remembrance Day" on May 5, 2016. We call upon

our fellow citizens to join us in remembering and honoring the amazing courage and the

enormous sacrifices of all those killed during the Holocaust, and we reaffirm our pledge to work

to eradicate bigotry, prejudice, brutality and injustice through education and vigilance; and be it

further

     RESOLVED, That the Secretary of State be and hereby is authorized and directed to

transmit duly certified copies of this resolution to the United States Holocaust Museum, the

Rhode Island Holocaust Museum, the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island and the Jewish

Community Center of Rhode Island.

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