(TRENTON) – Assembly Speaker Coughlin (D-Middlesex) offered the following statement for Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day:
“Today, we remember the most despicable event in modern history. We remember the inhumanity that so many innocent souls were forced to endure. We remember just how cruel people can be. We remember the near eradication of European Jewry. Today, we remember the Holocaust.
“Today is supposed to be uncomfortable; it is supposed to be sad. We do not remember because we want to or because it is easy, we remember because we must.
“There are many people in our great state who are either direct descendants of the heroes that are Holocaust survivors, and those who were even in the camps themselves.
“Today is for you. Today is to show that you have made New Jersey, the United States and the world a better place, and to thank you for doing just that.
“And today is for those who were unable to escape the depths of hell on Earth; for those who never woke up from their nightmare.
“Today we remember a number that is so much more than just a number: it is a number that symbolizes laughs and cries. It symbolizes celebration and pain. It symbolizes all the potential which was washed away into nothingness. It symbolizes the worst in humanity, and the ability to overcome.
“Today, we remember 6 million.”