07-R177

2007 -- S 0932

Enacted 04/12/07

 

S E N A T E  R E S O L U T I O N

COMMEMORATING "HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY" ON APRIL 15, 2007

     

     

     Introduced By: Senators Perry, C Levesque, Paiva-Weed, Pichardo, and Miller

     Date Introduced: April 12, 2007

 

 

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

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

heroism during this horrendous period in our world history. This year marks the 64th Anniversary

of the Warsaw Uprising and the 44th Anniversary of the dedication of the Memorial to the Six

Million; 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 systemically and

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

throughout Europe because they perceived the Jewish people to be “racially inferior” and “life

unworthy of life”; and

      WHEREAS, Holocaust Remembrance Day is a time to applaud those men and women

who endured, who rebuilt lives that had been so cruelly shattered and once again dreamed of a

future for their children. It is a day to acknowledge these brave individuals, who stand as a

testament to anyone who would try to revise or deny this horrendous period in world history. It is

also a day to recall, with admiration, those heroes who risked and often lost their own lives in

order to save others 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

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 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, We must always remember and never forget the millions who died for who

they were, how they worshipped, 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 Senate of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

hereby commemorates “Holocaust Remembrance Day” on April 15, 2007. We call upon our

fellow citizens to join us in acknowledging and applauding the survivors of Holocaust and to

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 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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LC02802

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