86R4620 BK-D
By: King of Parker H.R. No. 129
R E S O L U T I O N
WHEREAS, January 27, 2019, marks the 74th anniversary of the
liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and death camp,
a place that has come to symbolize for people around the world the
evils of the German Nazi regime and its reign of violence and terror
across Europe; and
WHEREAS, After the onset of World War II, German chancellor
Adolf Hitler put into action the "Final Solution," a plan that
escalated his state-enforced policy of oppression of Jewish
citizens and other targeted groups into a campaign of mass murder;
Auschwitz-Birkenau, which opened in the spring of 1940, was the
largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps, consisting of
several facilities and subcamps where a total of at least 1.1
million people ultimately lost their lives; and
WHEREAS, By mid-1942, the majority of those being imprisoned
at Auschwitz-Birkenau were Jews; detainees who were considered
unfit for work, including pregnant women, young children, the
elderly, and the infirm, were executed upon arrival, while others
went on to die from overwork, disease, poor nutrition, or arbitrary
acts of violence carried out by the guards; some prisoners were
subjected to inhumane and often fatal experiments conducted by
Josef Mengele and other Nazi researchers; and
WHEREAS, In 1944, with Allied forces closing in,
Auschwitz-Birkenau commandants began destroying evidence of the
atrocities that had taken place at the camp; the Germans ordered an
evacuation of the compound in January 1945, forcing tens of
thousands of prisoners to embark on death marches that would claim
many lives through exposure, starvation, or exhaustion; the Soviet
Army arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau as liberators on January 27 and
found more than 7,500 sick or emaciated detainees who had been left
behind, along with the remains and belongings of other victims of
the camp's brutality; the vast majority of the deceased were Jews,
and an additional 70,000 to 80,000 Poles and 19,000 to 20,000 Roma
were also counted in estimates of the dead; and
WHEREAS, Today, the anniversary of the liberation of
Auschwitz-Birkenau is observed as International Holocaust
Remembrance Day, an annual day for the world to memorialize the six
million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and the millions of other
victims of Nazism and to develop educational programs aimed at
preventing genocide; only through a true understanding of this
horrific chapter of history can we recognize and confront the
forces of hatred and intolerance, wherever they may manifest, and
work together toward a more hopeful future; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 86th Texas
Legislature hereby commemorate the 74th anniversary of the
liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and death camp
and the observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on
January 27, 2019.