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
Recognizing January 27, 2025, as "International Holocaust
Remembrance Day" in Pennsylvania.
WHEREAS, The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic
persecution and murder of an estimated 17 million people by the
German Nazi regime, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler,
between 1933 and 1945; and
WHEREAS, Upon the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933, the party
gave political expression to theories of racism against the
Jewish population and gained popularity by disseminating anti-
Jewish propaganda and ordering anti-Jewish economic boycotts,
staging book burnings and enacting discriminatory anti-Jewish
legislation such as the Nuremberg Laws which, in 1935, provided
the legal framework for the systemic persecution of the Jewish
people; and
WHEREAS, The Holocaust began with grievous abuses of power
and what would be referred to today as gross human rights
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violations before escalating into war and genocide; and
WHEREAS, German Nazis not only targeted the European Jewish
population, but countless others, including Romani, mentally and
physically disabled individuals, homosexuals, Poles, Communists,
Soviet citizens, Socialists and Jehovah's Witnesses, due to
perceived racial and biological inferiority and on political,
ideological and behavioral grounds; and
WHEREAS, In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at
more than 9 million but by the liberation of the Auschwitz-
Birkenau concentration camp in 1945, the Germans and their
collaborators had killed approximately 6 million Jewish men,
women and children as part of the "Final Solution" policy the
Nazi regime developed in an effort to eradicate the Jewish
population; and
WHEREAS, The Holocaust was a unique and undeniable tragedy
and human rights crisis that was perpetrated upon millions of
innocent victims; and
WHEREAS, On January 27, 1945, Soviet soldiers opened the
gates to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest and deadliest
concentration camp, and liberated more than 6,000 prisoners,
most of whom were ill and dying due to the horrors they were
subjected to by their captors; and
WHEREAS, In 2005, in commemoration of the importance and
significance of that event, the General Assembly of the United
Nations adopted a resolution establishing January 27 as
"International Holocaust Remembrance Day"; and
WHEREAS, January 27 serves as both a day on which the lives
of those who perished during the Holocaust are honored and on
which a commitment to human rights is reasserted by rejecting
any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event and educating
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new generations of the atrocities that transpired in an effort
to prevent future acts of genocide from occurring; and
WHEREAS, The General Assembly of the United Nations also
encourages, as part of its original declaration in 2005, that
this day be used to condemn all manifestations of religious
intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against
individuals or communities based on ethnic origin or religious
belief, whenever they occur; therefore be it
RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives recognize January
27, 2025, as "International Holocaust Remembrance Day" in
Pennsylvania.
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