Introduced By: Representatives Cicilline, Martineau, Watson, Benoit and Henseler
Date Introduced : April 13, 1999
WHEREAS, April 13th is Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah), and is a solemn day of remembrance commemorating the victims of the Holocaust; and
WHEREAS, In the mist of the presumably enlightened 20th Century, Germany, an ancient land long steeped in Christian tradition, with a culture that once inspired and nurtured such giants as Goethe and Beethoven, surrendered itself and its heritage to the dark, irrational underside of the human spirit and degenerated into the neo-barbarism of Nazism -- a decent into Hell that not only engulfed and destroyed Germany, but threatened to extinguish the light of civilization throughout the world; and
WHEREAS, When the weapons of mass destruction were finally silenced, and the totality of Nazi crimes and atrocities were made known, an amazed and terrified world could only stand as a stunned and enraged witness to what fellow human beings had inflicted upon their brothers and sisters; and
WHEREAS, The horror and anguish of a not so distant past that so permeated such infamous killing grounds as Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau and Belson, which have today been replaced by a preternatural quiet and calm that hovers somberly over rows of sanitized barracks and rusting ovens that once attempted to mask the enormity of Nazi crimes, now stand as mute 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, We, the citizens of Rhode Island, the heirs to a rich heritage of religious tolerance and respect for individual liberty and dignity, know all too well that the price exacted for these rights and freedoms is eternal vigilance and courage, and we are particularly sensitive to the anguish of those far less fortunate than ourselves who have suffered and died for their religious convictions; and
WHEREAS, The lessons of the Holocaust have been powerfully articulated by Walter Reich, Director of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. "The past informs us so we understand how we can live in the present and not repeat the mistakes and the depredations.... Anyone who tries to take a very dark chapter in history, distort it, transform it in order to enable current policies to proceed as he or she wishes, is not only desecrating the past but also the present and laying a foundation for the desecration of the future.... We cannot understand the nature and meaning and possible consequences of prejudice unless we understand history. Anybody who attempts to distort history takes away from us our ability to understand those consequences."; now, therefore be it
RESOLVED, That this House of Representatives of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations hereby reaffirms its pledge to work to eradicate bigotry, prejudice, brutality and injustice through education, vigilance and resistance to the forces of oppression, and calls upon our fellow citizens to observe April 13th, 1999 as Holocaust Remembrance Day; 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.
