[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1590 Introduced in House (IH)]

111th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1590

 To provide assistance for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in 
                            Warsaw, Poland.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 18, 2009

   Mr. Smith of New Jersey (for himself, Mr. Wolf, Mr. Ackerman, Mr. 
 Burton of Indiana, Mr. Nadler of New York, Mr. McCotter, Mr. Sherman, 
and Mr. Cohen) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                      Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To provide assistance for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in 
                            Warsaw, Poland.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Support for the Museum of the 
History of Polish Jews Act of 2009''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Current and future generations benefit greatly by 
        visible reminders and documentation of the historical and 
        cultural roots of their society.
            (2) It is in the national interest of the United States to 
        encourage the preservation and protection of artifacts 
        associated with the heritage of United States citizens who 
        trace their forbearers to other countries and to encourage the 
        collection and dissemination of knowledge about that heritage.
            (3) According to the 2000 United States Census, nearly 
        9,000,000 Americans are of Polish ancestry.
            (4) At the beginning of World War II, Poland had the 
        largest Jewish population in Europe.
            (5) In 1996, Yeshayahu Weinberg, a founding director of Tel 
        Aviv's Diaspora Museum and the United States Holocaust Memorial 
        Museum, created an international team of experts with the goal 
        of establishing a Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
            (6) The Museum of the History of Polish Jews will preserve 
        and present the history of the Jewish people in Poland and the 
        wealth of their culture spanning a period of 1,000 years.
            (7) In 1997, the City of Warsaw donated a parcel of land, 
        opposite the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Memorial, for the explicit 
        use for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
            (8) In 2005, the Government of Poland and the City of 
        Warsaw agreed to provide 40,000,000 Polish zlotys for the 
        construction of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
            (9) In 2005, an international architectural competition 
        selected a Finnish firm to design the building for the Museum 
        of the History of Polish Jews.
            (10) In 2006, the building for the Museum of the History of 
        Polish Jews moved into the last phase of project design.

SEC. 3. ASSISTANCE FOR THE MUSEUM OF THE HISTORY OF POLISH JEWS.

    (a) In General.--Assistance provided by the Bureau of Educational 
and Cultural Affairs of the Department of State shall be made available 
to assist in the development of the permanent collection of the Museum 
of the History of Polish Jews.
    (b) Authorization for Assistance.--To carry out the purposes of 
subsection (a), the Secretary of State is authorized to provide 
$5,000,000, which shall remain available until expended, to the Museum 
for the History of Polish Jews.
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