[Congressional Bills 113th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 509 Introduced in House (IH)]

113th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 509

Expressing support for designation of August 23 as ``Black Ribbon Day'' 
     to recognize the victims of Soviet Communist and Nazi regimes.


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                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 6, 2014

 Mr. Shimkus submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
            the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
Expressing support for designation of August 23 as ``Black Ribbon Day'' 
     to recognize the victims of Soviet Communist and Nazi regimes.

Whereas, on August 13, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister 
        Winston Churchill issued a joint declation ``of certain common 
        principles in the national policies of their respective countries on 
        which they based their hopes for a better future for the world'' and 
        ``the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which 
        they will live and self government restored to those who have been 
        forcibly deprived of them'' and that the people of countries may live in 
        freedom;
Whereas the United States Government has actively advocated for and continues to 
        support the principles by the United Nations Universal Declaration of 
        Human Rights and the United Nations General Assembly resolution 260 
        (III) of December 9, 1948;
Whereas Captive Nations Week, signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower 
        in 1959, raised public awareness of the oppression of nations under the 
        control of Communist and other nondemocratic governments;
Whereas the European Parliament resolution on European conscience and 
        totalitarianism of April 2, 2009, and the ``Black Ribbon Day'' 
        resolution adopted by the Parliament of Canada of November 30, 2009, 
        establish a day of remembrance for victims of Communist and Nazi regimes 
        to remember and commemorate their victims;
Whereas the extreme forms of totalitarian rule practiced by the Soviet Communist 
        and Nazi regimes led to premeditated and vast crimes committed against 
        millions of human beings and their basic and inalienable rights on a 
        scale unseen before in history;
Whereas fleeing the Nazi and Soviet Communist crimes, hundreds of thousands of 
        people sought and found refuge in the United States;
Whereas August 23 would be an appropriate date to designate as ``Black Ribbon 
        Day'' to remember and never forget the terror millions of citizens in 
        Central and Eastern Europe experienced for more than 40 years by 
        ruthless military, economic, and political repression of the people 
        through arbitrary executions, mass arrests, deportations, the 
        suppression of free speech, confiscation of private property, and the 
        destruction of cultural and moral identity and civil society, all of 
        which deprived the vast majority of the peoples of Central and Eastern 
        Europe of their basic human rights and dignity, separating them from the 
        democratic world by means of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall; and
Whereas the memories of Europe's tragic past cannot be forgotten in order to 
        honor the victims, condemn the perpetrators, and lay the foundation for 
        reconciliation based on truth and remembrance: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives supports the 
designation of ``Black Ribbon Day'' to recognize the victims of Soviet 
Communist and Nazi regimes.
                                 <all>