2017 -- H 6120

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LC002370

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     STATE OF RHODE ISLAND

IN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

JANUARY SESSION, A.D. 2017

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H O U S E   R E S O L U T I O N

COMMEMORATING "HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY" AND "ARMENIAN

GENOCIDE REMEMBRANCE DAY" AND AVOWING THAT THESE ATROCITIES

SHALL NEVER BE REPEATED

     Introduced By: Representatives Kazarian, Ackerman, Regunberg, Knight, and Corvese

     Date Introduced: April 13, 2017

     Referred To: House read and passed

     WHEREAS, The State of Rhode Island has consistently demonstrated its concerns and

interests regarding raising awareness on the subjects of Holocaust and Genocide, and the

necessity for civic education, of which Genocide education should be a component; and

     WHEREAS, In 2016, the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and the Armenian

community spearheaded the drive to amend the Rhode Island General Laws in order to require

more comprehensive and inclusive educational requirements on the subjects of Holocaust and

Genocide; and

     WHEREAS, Resultantly, House Bill 7488 SUB A was passed by the General Assembly

and subsequently signed into law on June 17, 2016; and

     WHEREAS, The legislation requires the Rhode Island Board of Education to include

instruction on the subjects of Holocaust and Genocide studies in an appropriate place in the

curriculum, for all middle and high school students; and

     WHEREAS, The Armenian Genocide was conceived and carried out by the Ottoman

Empire from 1915 to 1923, and resulted in the deportation of nearly 2,000,000 Armenians, of

whom 1,500,000 men, women, and children were killed, and the remaining 500,000 survived but

were expelled from their homes. This act succeeded in the elimination of the Armenians from

their historic ancestral homeland where they had resided for over 2,500 years; and

     WHEREAS, United States Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr. explicitly described the

policy of the Ottoman Empire's government to the United States Department of State as "a

campaign of race extermination." The post-World War I Turkish government indicted the top

leaders involved in the organization and execution of the Armenian Genocide and in the

"massacre and destruction of the Armenians," and in a series of court-martials, officials of the

Young Turk regime were charged, tried and convicted, for organizing and executing massacres

against the Armenian people; 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 102nd Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

committed by the Ottoman Turks in 1915, and the 74th Anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto

Uprising; and

     WHEREAS, The United States Holocaust Memorial Council, an independent federal

agency, unanimously resolved on April 30, 1981, that the United States Holocaust Memorial

Museum would include the Armenian Genocide in the museum and has since done so; and

     WHEREAS, When one enters the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, there is an

exhibit depicting Adolf Hitler, who on ordering his military commanders to attack Poland without

provocation in 1939, dismissed objections by stating "[w]ho, after all, speaks today of the

annihilation of the Armenians?", thus setting the stage for the Holocaust; and

     WHEREAS, 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 Armenians in their brave fight for their survival and their ancestral homeland and

the valiant efforts of ghetto residents for whom day to day survival was a relentless struggle. The

brave actions of the Armenian and Jewish people stand as testimony to a rare and indomitable

human spirit and extraordinary courage exhibited in the darkest hours of man's inhumanity; and

     WHEREAS, Rhode Islanders and people of all nations must take the time to remember

and educate their youth about 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

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firmly avow that the atrocities of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust will never be

repeated; now, therefore be it

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

Providence Plantations hereby commemorates "Holocaust Remembrance Day" and "Armenian

Genocide Remembrance Day"; and be it further

     RESOLVED, That this House hereby expresses its deepest sympathy to the Jewish-

American and Armenian-American communities of Rhode Island and thanks them for their

efforts to assure that these atrocious and unconscionable events will always be commemorated

and never forgotten by future generations; 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 Honorable Donald Trump, President of the

United States, the Rhode Island Congressional Delegation, and the Honorable Gina Raimondo,

Governor of the State of Rhode Island.

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