[United States Statutes at Large, Volume 133, 116th Congress, 1st Session]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

 
Proclamation 9866 of April 26, 2019

Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust, 2019

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

On Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and during this week of
solemn remembrance, we honor the six million Jewish men, women, and
children who were brutally murdered by the Nazi regime. We also remember
the Roma and Sinti, persons with disabilities, Poles and Slavic ethnic
groups, Soviet prisoners of war, Jehovah's Witnesses, and persons who
were targeted based on their sexual orientation, all of whom were
targeted and killed by the Nazis and their collaborators.
The Holocaust will forever haunt the conscience of humanity. Unchecked
evil and hatred led to unprecedented depravity and destruction. The Nazi
regime sought to exterminate entire populations of those they deemed
undesirable. Millions of Jewish people were forced into ghettoes and
slave-labor camps in which starvation, widespread disease, and senseless
brutality took a devastating toll. Many of those who survived were sent
to concentration and death camps, in which millions of Jews were
murdered in gas chambers and other facilities built for daily human
massacre.
In Hebrew, the day commemorating victims of the Holocaust is called
``Yom HaShoah Ve-Hagevurah,'' which means the ``Day of (Remembrance of)
the Holocaust and the Heroism.'' As we honor the victims of the
Holocaust, we also celebrate the survivors and daring rescuers who
overcame horrific injustices, endless nights of darkness, and daunting
odds. Survivors of the Holocaust endured firsthand hatred and evil that
sought to extinguish human life, dignity, and freedom. When the heroic
American and Allied forces liberated them, the survivors had every right
to sorrow and bitterness, but instead, they inspired all of humanity
with their unbreakable spirit and the prevailing power of hope and
forgiveness over horror and hatred.
Simon Wiesenthal, a Jewish-Austrian Holocaust survivor who endured five
different labor and concentration camps to live to the age of 96, spent
his life showing the world the depravity of the Nazis so that the
haunting truths of the Holocaust would never fade. In his memoirs, he
recounted being told by a Nazi guard that it was worthless to tell the
story of the Holocaust because no one would ever believe such things
were possible.
On Yom HaShoah, and during this week of remembrance, we join Simon
Wiesenthal in refuting his captor and strongly reaffirm our everlasting
commitment to honor the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, who
through their courageous testimony, fulfill the righteous duty never to
forget. We vow never to remain silent or indifferent in the face of
evil. With absolute devotion, we will continue to advance human rights,
combat anti-Semitism, and dispel all forms of hatred in every part of
the world.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of
America, do hereby ask the people of the United States to observe the
Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust, April 28 through May 5,
2019, and the solemn anniversary of the liberation of

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Nazi death camps, with appropriate study, prayers and commemoration, and
to honor the memory of the victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution
by remembering the lessons of this atrocity so that it is never
repeated.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-sixth day of
April, in the year of our Lord two thousand nineteen, and of the
Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-
third.
DONALD J. TRUMP