HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE - S.B. 315: COMMITTEE SUMMARY
Senate Bill 315 (as introduced 3-13-01)
Sponsor: Senator Thaddeus G. McCotter
Committee: Government Operations
Date Completed: 3-14-01
CONTENT
The bill would create a new act to establish April 19 as Holocaust Remembrance Day, and to establish the period beginning on the Sunday before April 19 through the following Sunday as the Days of Remembrance in Michigan, "in memory of the victims of the holocaust, and in honor of the survivors, as well as the rescuers and liberators".
The bill states that April 19, which in the Hebrew calendar is the 27th day of Nisan, has been established by the United States Congress as a national Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the week surrounding the date has been established as the Days of Remembrance. The bill provides that the Legislature "encourages individuals, educational institutions, and social, community, religious, labor, and business organizations to pause on Holocaust remembrance day and during the Days of Remembrance and reflect upon the terrible events of the Holocaust, so that as a society we will remain vigilant against hatred, persecution, and tyranny and actively rededicate ourselves to the principles of individual freedom in a just society".
The bill also contains the following statements:
The legislature recognizes that the horrors of the Holocaust should never be forgotten. The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. In addition to the murder of some 6,000,000 Jews, millions more, including the handicapped, Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, prisoners of war, and political dissidents, also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi tyranny.
A key date in the history of the Holocaust is April 19, 1943, the beginning of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, when Jews, using homemade bombs and stolen or bartered weapons, resisted death camp deportation by the Nazis for 27 days.
- Legislative Analyst: G. Towne
FISCAL IMPACT
The bill would have no fiscal impact on State or local government.
- Fiscal Analyst: B. BowermanS0102\s315sa
This analysis was prepared by nonpartisan Senate staff for use by the Senate in its deliberations and does not constitute an official statement of legislative intent.