PRINTER'S NO. 129
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA
SENATE RESOLUTION
No. 13
Session of
2025
INTRODUCED BY SANTARSIERO, SCHWANK, HUGHES, PENNYCUICK, STREET,
PHILLIPS-HILL, BROWN, COMITTA, HAYWOOD, ROTHMAN, CULVER,
COSTA, ARGALL, TARTAGLIONE, KANE AND STEFANO,
JANUARY 27, 2025
INTRODUCED AND ADOPTED, JANUARY 27, 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
17 violations before escalating into war and genocide; and
 1 WHEREAS, German Nazis not only targeted the European Jewish
2 population, but countless others, including Romani, mentally and
3 physically disabled individuals, homosexuals, Poles, Communists,
4 Soviet citizens, Socialists and Jehovah's Witnesses, due to
5 perceived racial and biological inferiority and on political,
6 ideological and behavioral grounds; and
7 WHEREAS, In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at
8 more than 9 million but by the liberation of the Auschwitz-
9 Birkenau concentration camp in 1945, the Germans and their
10 collaborators had killed approximately 6 million Jewish men,
11 women and children as part of the "Final Solution" policy the
12 Nazi regime developed in an effort to eradicate the Jewish
13 population; and
14 WHEREAS, The Holocaust was a unique and undeniable tragedy
15 and human rights crisis that was perpetrated upon millions of
16 innocent victims; and
17 WHEREAS, On January 27, 1945, Soviet soldiers opened the
18 gates to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest and deadliest
19 concentration camp, and liberated more than 6,000 prisoners,
20 most of whom were ill and dying due to the horrors they were
21 subjected to by their captors; and
22 WHEREAS, In 2005, in commemoration of the importance and
23 significance of that event, the General Assembly of the United
24 Nations adopted a resolution establishing January 27 as
25 "International Holocaust Remembrance Day"; and
26 WHEREAS, January 27 serves as both a day on which the lives
27 of those who perished during the Holocaust are honored and on
28 which a commitment to human rights is reasserted by rejecting
29 any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event and educating
30 new generations of the atrocities that transpired in an effort
20250SR0013PN0129 - 2 -
1 to prevent future acts of genocide from occurring; therefore be
2 it
3 RESOLVED, That the Senate recognize January 27, 2025, as
4 "International Holocaust Remembrance Day" in Pennsylvania.
20250SR0013PN0129 - 3 -