Commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Whereas United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/7 (2005) designated January 27 of each year as an International Day of Commemoration in memory of victims of the Holocaust;

Whereas, during World War II, the Nazi regime and its collaborators systematically murdered 6,000,000 Jews and millions of other individuals;

Whereas the Auschwitz extermination camp complex in Nazi-occupied Poland, which included a killing center at Birkenau, was the largest death camp complex established by the Nazi regime;

Whereas, on January 27, 1945, the Auschwitz extermination camp was liberated by Allied Forces, after almost 5 years of murder, rape, and torture at the camp;

Whereas nearly 1,300,000 innocent civilians were deported to Auschwitz from their homes across Eastern and Western Europe, particularly from Hungary, Poland, and France;

Whereas nearly 1,100,000 innocent civilians were murdered at the Auschwitz extermination camp between 1940 and 1945;

Whereas at least 960,000 of the nearly 1,100,000 murdered people were Jewish;

Whereas the more than 100,000 other victims who perished at Auschwitz included non-Jewish Poles, Romani people, Soviet civilians and prisoners of war, Afro-Germans, Jehovah’s Witnesses, people with disabilities, gay men and women, and other ethnic minorities;

Whereas these innocent civilians were subjected to torture, forced labor, starvation, rape, medical experiments, and separation from loved ones;

Whereas the names of many of these innocent individuals who perished have been lost forever;

Whereas the Auschwitz extermination camp symbolizes the extraordinary brutality of the Holocaust;

Whereas the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum serves as our Nation’s memorial to the victims of the Holocaust and teaches the history and lessons of the Holocaust to individuals from all walks of life in the United States;

Whereas the people of the United States must never forget the genocide and terrible crimes against humanity committed at the Auschwitz extermination camp;

Whereas the people of the United States must educate future generations to promote understanding of the dangers of intolerance in order to prevent similar injustices, including acts of violent anti-Semitism, from happening again;

Whereas there are only approximately 220,000 Holocaust survivors who are still living and it is more important now than ever to share their collective histories and stories;

Whereas, in recent years, there has been an increase in the number and intensity of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States and around the world;

Whereas, since the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, there have been more than 10,000 anti-Semitic incidents in the United States;

Whereas hate crime statistics collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation demonstrate a 63-percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States from 2022 to 2023;

Whereas, in 2018, the United States experienced the single deadliest attack against the Jewish community in the history of the United States with the murder of 11 individuals at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and

Whereas, especially in a period of rising anti-Semitism, commemoration of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp will instill in all people of the United States a greater awareness of the Holocaust and knowledge of the horrors brought upon by the systematic murder of 6,000,000 Jews and millions of other innocent individuals by the Nazi regime: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives—

(1) calls on all people of the United States to remember the 1,100,000 innocent victims murdered at the Auschwitz extermination camp as part of the Holocaust, the 6,000,000 Jews killed during the Holocaust, and all of the victims of the Nazi reign of terror;

(2) honors the legacy of the survivors of the Holocaust and of the Auschwitz extermination camp;

(3) calls on the people of the United States to continue to work toward tolerance, peace, and justice and to continue to work to end all genocide and persecution; and

(4) recommits to combating all forms of anti-Semitism.