Bill Text: TX HR1764 | 2011-2012 | 82nd Legislature | Enrolled
Bill Title: Commemorating the 2011 El Paso Holocaust Museum and Study Center Yom HaShoah and honoring El Paso Holocaust survivors.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Passed) 2011-05-09 - Reported enrolled [HR1764 Detail]
Download: Texas-2011-HR1764-Enrolled.html
H.R. No. 1764 |
|
||
WHEREAS, The El Paso Holocaust Museum and Study Center | ||
honored the memory of Holocaust victims and celebrated the | ||
community's Holocaust survivors on May 1, 2011, in conjunction with | ||
National Holocaust Remembrance Week, which began that day; and | ||
WHEREAS, Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany carried out the | ||
systematic persecution and annihilation of six million European | ||
Jews, as well as millions of other people, including Roma, Poles, | ||
disabled individuals, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Soviet | ||
prisoners of war, and political dissidents; and | ||
WHEREAS, Since 1980, when the United States Congress | ||
established the Days of Remembrance, Americans have joined together | ||
for Yom HaShoah to reflect on the horrific events that occurred | ||
during those dark years and to educate others and work to create a | ||
more peaceful world; and | ||
WHEREAS, At one time, El Paso was home to more than 80 people | ||
who had survived the suffering of the Holocaust; although many have | ||
since died, the residents who remain are among the city's most | ||
treasured citizens; and | ||
WHEREAS, These include: Tom Dula, a native of Czechoslovakia | ||
who was helped by non-Jewish farmers; Guy Hauptman, a native of | ||
Belgium who was sheltered by friends, family, and a Christian | ||
orphanage before being reunited with his parents after the war; Mr. | ||
Hauptman's mother, Sara Rozen Hauptman, a native of Poland and a | ||
survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Dachau; David Kaplan, a native | ||
of Lithuania who worked in Nazi factories and survived two | ||
concentration camps and two death marches; and El Paso Holocaust | ||
Museum and Study Center founder Henry Kellen, a native of Poland who | ||
escaped the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, along with his wife and | ||
nephew, and was hidden by a Christian farmer; and | ||
WHEREAS, Additional local survivors are: Samuel Kessel, a | ||
native of Lithuania and a survivor of the Stutthof and Dachau | ||
concentration camps; Irene Osborne, a native of Germany who | ||
survived two concentration camps and later lived with family in | ||
France under a false identity; Albert Rosenberg, a native of | ||
Germany who survived a severe beating before immigrating to the | ||
United States and serving in the military's psychological warfare | ||
division; Erik Saks, a native of Austria who escaped with his family | ||
to Italy and eventually to the United States, where he enlisted in | ||
the army; Charlie Saul, who traveled with his family from Burma, | ||
where his father worked, to Calcutta, India, after Japan invaded | ||
Burma; Tibor Schaechner, a native of Hungary who hid with his mother | ||
and sister in safe houses before being forced into the Budapest | ||
Ghetto; Peter Shugart, also a native of Hungary who survived the | ||
Budapest Ghetto; and Lee Schweitzer, a native of Austria who moved | ||
to Palestine to live with relatives and then immigrated to the | ||
United States, where he was drafted into the army; and | ||
WHEREAS, Through their courage to come forward and share | ||
their painful past, these remarkable men and women make El Paso a | ||
better place in which to live, and their stories serve as powerful | ||
reminders to stand firm against all forms of injustice; now, | ||
therefore, be it | ||
RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 82nd Texas | ||
Legislature hereby commemorate the 2011 El Paso Holocaust Museum | ||
and Study Center Yom HaShoah and extend sincere gratitude to all | ||
those associated with the event for their efforts to educate others | ||
about the Holocaust. | ||
Gonzalez | ||
______________________________ | ||
Speaker of the House | ||
I certify that H.R. No. 1764 was adopted by the House on May | ||
6, 2011, by a non-record vote. | ||
______________________________ | ||
Chief Clerk of the House | ||