| R 244 |
| 2023 -- H 6283 Enacted 04/18/2023 |
| H O U S E R E S O L U T I O N |
| COMMEMORATING "HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY" ON APRIL 18, 2023 |
Introduced By: Representatives Ackerman, Finkelman, Knight, Kislak, McNamara, Ajello, Shekarchi, Blazejewski, Shallcross Smith, and Boylan |
| Date Introduced: April 18, 2023 |
| 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. 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, 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 80th Anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising |
| and 59th 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 hereby |
| commemorates "Holocaust Remembrance Day" on April 18, 2023. 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 Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, the Jewish |
| Community Center of Rhode Island, and the Rhode Island Israel Collaborative. |
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| LC002751 |
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