R 243
2022 -- S 2888
Enacted 04/26/2022

S E N A T E   R E S O L U T I O N
COMMEMORATING "HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY" ON APRIL 28, 2022

Introduced By: Senators Bell, Miller, Kallman, and Zurier

Date Introduced: April 26, 2022

     WHEREAS, Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah), which begins at sunset on
the 27th day of the month of Nisan, 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. Seventy-seven years ago, Soviet forces and shortly thereafter, other Allied
forces, liberated Auschwitz and other concentration camps, liberating thousands of suffering and
starving prisoners; 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, In the year 1933, nine million Jews lived in Europe, 500,000 of whom lived
in Germany, and were subjected to over 400 laws and regulations to strip them of their basic
human rights; and
     WHEREAS, On November 9th and 10th, 1938, referred to as Kristallnacht, Nazis torched
synagogues, Jewish homes, schools, and killed Jewish residents, beginning systemic violence
against Jews in Germany; and
     WHEREAS, This year marks the 79th Anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising,
where Jews fought and refused to surrender to Nazi forces. 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,
so that the lessons of our past are never again repeated. The day is also a time to applaud all those
who endured and who bravely rebuilt lives that had been so cruelly shattered, and acknowledge,
with admiration, those heroes who risked and often lost their own lives in order to save others;
now, therefore be it
     RESOLVED, That this Senate of the State of Rhode Island hereby recognizes the historic
significance of Holocaust Remembrance Day; 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
Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Memorial Education Center, the Board of Rabbis of Greater Rhode
Island, and Mr. Adam Greenman, President and CEO of the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode
Island.
========
LC003405
========