[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 65 (Wednesday, April 7, 2021)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 18167-18168]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-07289]



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Vol. 86

Wednesday,

No. 65

April 7, 2021

Part III





The President





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Proclamation 10173--Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust, 
2021



Proclamation 10174--Honoring United States Capitol Police Officers
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  Federal Register / Vol. 86 , No. 65 / Wednesday, April 7, 2021 / 
Presidential Documents  

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 Title 3--
 The President

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                Proclamation 10173 of April 2, 2021

                
Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust, 
                2021

                By the President of the United States of America

                A Proclamation

                On Yom HaShoah--Holocaust Remembrance Day--we stand in 
                solidarity with the Jewish people in America, Israel, 
                and around the world to remember and reflect on the 
                horrors of the Holocaust. An estimated six million Jews 
                perished alongside millions of other innocent victims--
                Roma and Sinti, Slavs, disabled persons, LGBTQ+ 
                individuals, and others--systematically murdered by the 
                Nazis and their collaborators in one of the cruelest 
                and most heinous campaigns in human history.

                We honor the memories of precious lives lost, 
                contemplate the incomprehensible wound to our humanity, 
                mourn for the communities broken and scattered, and 
                embrace those who survived the Holocaust--some of whom 
                are still with us today, continuing to embody 
                extraordinary resilience after all these years. Having 
                borne witness to the depths of evil, these survivors 
                remind us of the vital refrain: ``never again.'' The 
                history of the Holocaust is forever seared into the 
                history of humankind, and it is the shared 
                responsibility of all people to ensure that the horrors 
                of the Shoah can never be erased from our collective 
                memory.

                It is painful to remember. It is human nature to want 
                to leave the past behind. But in order to prevent a 
                tragedy like the Holocaust from happening again, we 
                must share the truth of this dark period with each new 
                generation. All of us must understand the depravity 
                that is possible when governments back policies fueled 
                by hatred, when we dehumanize groups of people, and 
                when ordinary people decide that it is easier to look 
                away or go along than to speak out. Our children and 
                grandchildren must learn where those roads lead, so 
                that the commitment of ``never again'' lives strongly 
                in their hearts.

                I remember learning about the horrors of the Holocaust 
                from my father when I was growing up, and I have sought 
                to impart that history to my own children and 
                grandchildren in turn. I have taken them on separate 
                visits to Dachau, so that they could see for themselves 
                what happened there, and to impress on them the urgency 
                to speak out whenever they witness anti-Semitism or any 
                form of ethnic and religious hatred, racism, 
                homophobia, or xenophobia. The legacy of the Holocaust 
                must always remind us that silence in the face of such 
                bigotry is complicity--remembering, as Rabbi Abraham 
                Joshua Heschel wrote, that there are moments when 
                ``indifference to evil is worse than evil itself.''

                Those who survived the Holocaust are an inspiration to 
                every single one of us. Yet they continue to live with 
                the unique mental and physical scars from the 
                unconscionable trauma of the Holocaust, with many 
                survivors in the United States living in poverty. When 
                I served as Vice President, I helped secure Federal 
                funding for grants to support Holocaust survivors--but 
                we must do more to pursue justice and dignity for 
                survivors and their heirs. We have a moral imperative 
                to recognize the pain survivors carry, support them, 
                and ensure that their memories and experiences of the 
                Holocaust are neither denied nor distorted, and that 
                the lessons for all humanity are never forgotten.

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                Holocaust survivors and their descendants--and each 
                child, grandchild, and great-grandchild of those who 
                lost their lives--are living proof that love and hope 
                will always triumph over murder and destruction. Every 
                child and grandchild of a survivor is a testament to 
                resilience, and a living rebuke to those who sought to 
                extinguish the future of the Jewish people and others 
                who were targeted.

                Yom HaShoah reminds us not only of the Jewish victims 
                of the Holocaust, but also reinforces our ongoing duty 
                to counter all forms of dehumanizing bigotry directed 
                against the LGBTQ+, disability, and other marginalized 
                communities. While hate may never be permanently 
                defeated, it must always be confronted and condemned. 
                When we recognize the fundamental human dignity of all 
                people, we help to build a more just and peaceful 
                world. In the memory of all those who were lost, and in 
                honor of all those who survived, we must continue to 
                work toward a better, freer, and more just future for 
                all humankind.

                NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of 
                the United States of America, by virtue of the 
                authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws 
                of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 4 
                through April 11, 2021, as a week of observance of the 
                Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust, and 
                call upon the people of the United States to observe 
                this week and pause to remember victims and survivors 
                of the Holocaust.

                IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 
                second day of April, two thousand twenty-one, and of 
                the Independence of the United States of America the 
                two hundred and forty-fifth.
                
                
                    (Presidential Sig.)

[FR Doc. 2021-07289
Filed 4-6-21; 11:15 am]
Billing code 3295-F1-P