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Proclamation naming January 27, 2014 as Holocaust Remembrance Day in Allegheny County.
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WHEREAS, the Holocaust Center of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh is Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio and Northern West Virginia's only educational resource center on the Holocaust and whose mission is to heighten public awareness and honor survivors by utilizing the events of the Jewish Holocaust experience as a means to teach tolerance to middle and high school students. The Holocaust Center also engages the community and collaborates with other organizations, individuals and institutions around programming and conversations as to the contemporary relevance of the Holocaust; and
WHEREAS, the Smith Fund of the Community Foundation of Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio collaborated with the Holocaust Center to produce a multi-media exhibit to promote Holocaust awareness in high schools in Lawrence and Mercer Counties; and
WHEREAS, the Holocaust Center and the Community Foundation are engaged in a wide variety of activities including the collection of 6,000,000 pennies representing the 6,000,000 lives lost in the Holocaust, to support Holocaust education and awareness activities in and around Allegheny County; and
WHEREAS, the history of the Holocaust offers an opportunity to reflect on the moral responsibilities of individuals, societies, and governments; and
WHEREAS, in 2005, the United Nations General Assembly established January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day; on this day, we honor the memory of Holocaust victims, and encourage the development of educational programs about Holocaust history to help prevent future acts of genocide;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that Allegheny County Council does hereby proclaim January 27, 2014 as Holocaust Remembrance Day in Allegheny County. We commend the efforts of the Holocaust Center of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and the Smith Fund of the Community Foundation of Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio for promoting a deeper understanding of the Holocaust, as we reassert our commitment to human rights.