Senate Resolution 209 Printer's Number 1389

PENNSYLVANIA, January 20 - 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

new generations of the atrocities that transpired in an effort

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