04-R 185

2004 -- H 8425

Enacted 04/20/04

H O U S E R E S O L U T I O N

COMMEMORATING THE VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST

Introduced By: Representatives Lewiss, Long, E Coderre, Lima, and Shanley

Date Introduced: April 20, 2004

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

1945, before and during World War II, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazis systemically persecuted

and murdered nearly six million Jews and another five million non-Jews throughout Europe

because they perceived these people to be “racially inferior,” and “life unworthy of life”; and

     WHEREAS, Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah) begins

this year on Sunday evening, April 18th, 2004 and continues on April 19th, 2004. It is a solemn

day of remembrance honoring the victims of the Holocaust; it is a day to remember, with

admiration, those heroes who risked and often lost their own lives in order to save others; it is a

day to applaud the survivors, who bravely stand as a testament to anyone who would try to revise

or deny this horrendous period in world history; and it is a day for the world to firmly avow that

the atrocities of the Holocaust will never be repeated; and

     WHEREAS, The horror and anguish of such infamous killing grounds as Auschwitz,

Buchenwald, Dachau and Belson, which today house the unnatural quiet and ghostly calm of the

somber rows of sanitized barracks and rusting ovens, stand as speechless memorials to the six

million Jews and eleven million total victims who succumbed to the deliberate Nazi program of

genocide known as the Holocaust; and

     WHEREAS, The citizens of Rhode Island, having a 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, We will always remember and never forget the millions who died for who

they were, how they worshiped, what they believed in, who they loved, and for those who were

killed because of their strength, their differences or their physical disabilities. We are proud,

humbled, and honored to memorialize their amazing courage and their enormous sacrifices; now,

therefore be it

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

Providence Plantations hereby honor the victims of the Holocaust and call upon our fellow

citizens to join us in reaffirming 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 he 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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LC03121

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