2011 Days of Remembrance

From today through May 8, the United States will mark the 2001 Days of Remembrance, a commemoration created by a unanimous vote in Congress. It is a time for Americans to remember the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews and others. Like many Americans, I have Holocaust survivors in my family and members of my family who did not survive. And like other decent human beings on the planet, I will strain with every ounce of effort I can muster to defeat those who want to murder the victims a second time by denying what happened to them.

On the evening of April 19, I was honored by being asked to receive a formal Proclamation from my home, the Village of Mount Prospect just outside of Chicago, declaring May 1-8, 2011 Days of Remembrance in our town. About a month earlier, I received a mailing from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum asking that people approach their home towns and ask if they would issue a proclamation. I immediately contacted Mount Prospect Mayor Irvana Wilks (whom I had met previously through Senator Mark Kirk, another unyielding foe of Holocaust denial). Mayor Wilks responded immediately, and the village issued the proclamation. Emphasizing its universal message, Village Trustee John Matuszak read the proclamation, noting before he did that his own grandmother was murdered in the Holocaust.

During this time of rampant Holocaust denial, it is critical that all decent people work overtime to defeat it. Ironically, the Holocaust against the Jews might be the most extensively documented atrocity in history. The attempt to deny it is plain and simple anti-Semitism and political cynicism in their worst forms. Let the 2012 Days of Remembrance see even more such proclamations by even more localities throughout the United States and worldwide. I would be honored to help.