08-R201
2008 -- S 2991
Enacted 04/30/08
S E N A T E R E S O L U T I O N
COMMEMORATING
"HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY" ON MAY 1, 2008
Introduced By: Senators
Miller, Perry, Jabour, Raptakis, and Lenihan
Date Introduced: April 30,
2008
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 65th
Anniversary
of
the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the 45th 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 day to make a special effort to remember
–
Zachor. It 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 May 1, 2008. We call upon our
fellow
citizens
to join us in remembering and honoring the survivors and victims of 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 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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LC02792
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