WHEREAS, January 27, 2023 marks 78 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in German-occupied Poland; and

WHEREAS, today and every day, we remember the six million Jews who lost their lives at the hands of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis; and

WHEREAS, anti-Semitism has been defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities;” and

WHEREAS, anti-Semitism is on the rise in the United States, and according to the Anti-Defamation League, a record-high number of antisemitic incidents occurred in 2021; and

WHEREAS, antisemitic rhetoric is normalized and perpetuated by celebrities and popular figures today in the United States;

NOW, THEREFORE, be it resolved that I, Janet T. Mills, Governor of the State of Maine, do hereby proclaim January 27, 2023, as

Holocaust Remembrance Day

in Maine, and I urge all citizens to honor the lives that were lost and do their part to end anti-Semitism.

In testimony whereof, I have caused the Great Seal of the State to be hereunto affixed GIVEN under my hand at Augusta this twenty fourth day of January Two Thousand Twenty-Three