HR 22 — A Resolution recognizing January 27, 2025, as "International Holocaust Remembrance Day" in Pennsylvania.

PRINTER'S NO.   254

                   THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA



           HOUSE RESOLUTION
              No. 22
                                                 Session of
                                                   2025

     INTRODUCED BY SOLOMON, MARCELL, FREEMAN, VENKAT, SANCHEZ, KHAN,
        KUZMA, GIRAL, STAATS, M. MACKENZIE, McNEILL, D. MILLER,
        MALAGARI, KENYATTA, GILLEN, DONAHUE, NEILSON, REICHARD, RAPP,
        BRENNAN, HILL-EVANS, HOWARD, MENTZER, ZIMMERMAN, STEELE,
        GALLAGHER, FRANKEL, SCHLOSSBERG, GREEN, MADDEN AND CERRATO,
        JANUARY 23, 2025

     REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON STATE GOVERNMENT, JANUARY 23, 2025


                                  A RESOLUTION
 1   Recognizing January 27, 2025, as "International Holocaust
 2      Remembrance Day" in Pennsylvania.
 3      WHEREAS, The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic
 4   persecution and murder of an estimated 17 million people by the
 5   German Nazi regime, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler,
 6   between 1933 and 1945; and
 7      WHEREAS, Upon the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933, the party
 8   gave political expression to theories of racism against the
 9   Jewish population and gained popularity by disseminating anti-
10   Jewish propaganda and ordering anti-Jewish economic boycotts,
11   staging book burnings and enacting discriminatory anti-Jewish
12   legislation such as the Nuremberg Laws which, in 1935, provided
13   the legal framework for the systemic persecution of the Jewish
14   people; and
15      WHEREAS, The Holocaust began with grievous abuses of power
16   and what would be referred to today as gross human rights
 1   violations before escalating into war and genocide; and
 2      WHEREAS, German Nazis not only targeted the European Jewish
 3   population, but countless others, including Romani, mentally and
 4   physically disabled individuals, homosexuals, Poles, Communists,
 5   Soviet citizens, Socialists and Jehovah's Witnesses, due to
 6   perceived racial and biological inferiority and on political,
 7   ideological and behavioral grounds; and
 8      WHEREAS, In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at
 9   more than 9 million but by the liberation of the Auschwitz-
10   Birkenau concentration camp in 1945, the Germans and their
11   collaborators had killed approximately 6 million Jewish men,
12   women and children as part of the "Final Solution" policy the
13   Nazi regime developed in an effort to eradicate the Jewish
14   population; and
15      WHEREAS, The Holocaust was a unique and undeniable tragedy
16   and human rights crisis that was perpetrated upon millions of
17   innocent victims; and
18      WHEREAS, On January 27, 1945, Soviet soldiers opened the
19   gates to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest and deadliest
20   concentration camp, and liberated more than 6,000 prisoners,
21   most of whom were ill and dying due to the horrors they were
22   subjected to by their captors; and
23      WHEREAS, In 2005, in commemoration of the importance and
24   significance of that event, the General Assembly of the United
25   Nations adopted a resolution establishing January 27 as
26   "International Holocaust Remembrance Day"; and
27      WHEREAS, January 27 serves as both a day on which the lives
28   of those who perished during the Holocaust are honored and on
29   which a commitment to human rights is reasserted by rejecting
30   any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event and educating

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 1   new generations of the atrocities that transpired in an effort
 2   to prevent future acts of genocide from occurring; and
 3      WHEREAS, The General Assembly of the United Nations also
 4   encourages, as part of its original declaration in 2005, that
 5   this day be used to condemn all manifestations of religious
 6   intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against
 7   individuals or communities based on ethnic origin or religious
 8   belief, whenever they occur; therefore be it
 9      RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives recognize January
10   27, 2025, as "International Holocaust Remembrance Day" in
11   Pennsylvania.




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