01/27/2025
A proclamation that the Borough of Houtzdale, Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, recognizes January 27, 2025, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day
This proclamation recognizes January 27, 2025, as "International Holocaust Remembrance Day" in Houtzdale Borough.
WHEREAS: The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and murder of an estimated 17 million people by the German N**i regime, under the leadership of Adolf Hi**er, between 1933 and 1945; and
WHEREAS: German N**is not only targeted the European Jewish population, but countless others, including Romani, mentally and physically disabled individuals, homosexuals, Poles, Communists, Soviet citizens, Socialists and Jehovah's Witnesses, due to perceived racial and biological inferiority and on political,
ideological and behavioral grounds; and
WHEREAS: On January 27, 1945, Soviet soldiers opened the gates to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest and deadliest concentration camp, and liberated more than 6,000 prisoners, most of whom were ill and dying due to the horrors they were subjected to by their captors; and
WHEREAS: In 2005, in commemoration of the importance and significance of that event, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution establishing January 27 as "International Holocaust Remembrance Day"; and
WHEREAS: January 27 serves as both a day on which the lives of those who perished during the Holocaust are honored and on which a commitment to human rights is reasserted by rejecting any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event and educating new generations of the atrocities that transpired in an effort to prevent future acts of genocide from occurring; and
WHEREAS: The General Assembly of the United Nations also encourages, as part of its original declaration in 2005, that this day be used to condemn all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against individuals or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, whenever they occur;
NOW THEREFORE, I, Izen Lingenfelter, Mayor of the Borough of Houtzdale, Pennsylvania, with the support of members of Borough Council and the citizens of Houtzdale, do hereby proclaim January 27, 2025 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Houtzdale in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, and in honor of the survivors, as well as the rescuers and liberators, and further proclaim that we, as residents of Houtzdale Borough should strive to overcome intolerance and indifference through learning and remembrance.
PROCLAIMED by the Mayor of the Borough of Houtzdale on the 15th Day of January of the Year 2025.
