HB-4276, As Passed Senate, February 12, 2004
February 25, 2003, Introduced by Reps. Shulman, Garfield, Tobocman, Voorhees, Hopgood, Vagnozzi, Meisner, Hummel, Meyer, Hager, Shaffer, Brandenburg, Palmer, Koetje, Stahl, Nofs, Steil, Rocca, Kooiman, Hart, Vander Veen, Bisbee, Tabor, Stewart, Hoogendyk, Gaffney, Woronchak, Middaugh, Shackleton, Newell, Sheen, Hune, Caswell, Minore, Sheltrown, Caul, Van Regenmorter, Walker, DeRossett, Jamnick, Taub and Emmons and referred to the Committee on Great Lakes and Tourism.
A bill to establish Holocaust remembrance week in the state
of Michigan.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN ENACT:
1 Sec. 1. (1) The legislature recognizes that the horrors of
2 the Holocaust should never be forgotten. The Holocaust was the
3 state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of
4 European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933
5 and 1945. In addition to the murder of some 6,000,000 Jews,
6 millions more, including the handicapped, Poles, Gypsies,
7 homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, prisoners of war, and political
8 dissidents, also suffered grievous oppression and death under
9 Nazi tyranny.
10 (2) A key date in the history of the Holocaust is April 19,
11 1943, the beginning of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, when Jews,
12 using homemade bombs and stolen or bartered weapons, resisted
1 death camp deportation by the Nazis for 27 days. This date,
2 which in the Hebrew calendar is the twenty-seventh day of Nisan,
3 has been established by the United States congress as a national
4 Holocaust remembrance day, and the week surrounding this date has
5 been established as the Days of Remembrance.
6 (3) The legislature declares that the twenty-seventh day of
7 the month of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar shall be Holocaust
8 remembrance day, and that the period beginning on the Sunday
9 before that day through the following Sunday shall be the Days of
10 Remembrance in this state, in memory of the victims of the
11 Holocaust, and in honor of the survivors, as well as the rescuers
12 and liberators.
13 Sec. 2. The legislature encourages individuals, educational
14 institutions, and social, community, religious, labor, and
15 business organizations to pause on Holocaust remembrance day and
16 during the Days of Remembrance and reflect upon the terrible
17 events of the Holocaust, so that as a society we will remain
18 vigilant against hatred, persecution, and tyranny and actively
19 rededicate ourselves to the principles of individual freedom in a
20 just society.