2014 – H 8077
Enacted 04/29/14
H O U S E R E S O L U T I O N
COMMEMORATING "HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY" ON APRIL 28, 2014
Introduced By: Representatives Ackerman, Amore, McNamara, Blazejewski, and Ajello
Date Introduced: April 29, 2014
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. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has designated this year's theme as "Confronting the Holocaust: American Responses"; 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 71st Anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and 51st 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 April 28, 2014. 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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LC005419
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