Jason Delgado
Gov. Ron DeSantis is ordering flags to be flown at half-staff on Wednesday in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The order applies to all United States and Florida flags flown at local and state buildings, installations and grounds statewide from sunrise to sunset.
“January 27, 2021, will mark the 76th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp and extermination center,” the Governor’s memorandum reads. “In 2005, the United Nations designated January 27th as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. We honor the innocent lives lost, the families and friends of victims and the heroes who risked their lives for freedom during World War II.”
The Governor’s memorandum adds that Florida “does not tolerate anti-Semitism or discrimination against the Jewish people in any form.”
It notes the 2019 passage of HB 74, a measure banning anti-Semitism in Florida’s public school and prohibiting religious discrimination in Florida schools.
Signed by DeSantis in Jerusalem, the legislation was the first bill in Florida history signed on foreign soil.
“From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators sought to dismantle democracy across Europe,” the memorandum said. “Based on the bigoted belief that Germans were “racially superior,” the Nazi regime targeted several groups they perceived to be racially and biologically inferior.”
“The state-sponsored persecution resulted in the systematic murder of six million Jewish men, women and children. This dark hour of humanity known as the Holocaust left families broken and cast a dark shadow over our collective memory.”
