Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R) has announced that her Forgotten Heroes of the Holocaust Congressional Gold Medal Act has enlisted over 255 cosponsors. The news comes as this weekend marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Last January, Rep. Elvira Salazar introduced the Forgotten Heroes of the Holocaust Congressional Gold Medal Act, which is a bipartisan bill that New York Rep. Ritchie Torres (D) is co-leading. Over the weekend, Rep. Salazar announced that the bill now has the support of over half the members of the House of Representative.
According to a press release from Salazar’s office, the legislation “would grant the Congressional Gold Medal to the 60 diplomats from around the world who, through various means, saved the lives of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution.” The press release goes on to inform that “in most cases, diplomats would issue passports and travel visas to Jewish families often at great risk to their own lives.”
Praising the bill in a statement, Rep. Salazar shared that enlisting the support of the majority of members in the House is crucial because “we not only remember those lives who perished during the Holocaust, but those who risked it all to save Jewish lives.”
Reps. Salazar and Torres have enlisted the support of lawmakers like Florida Reps. Carlos Gimenez (R), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D), Anna Paulina Luna (R), Mike Waltz (R), Jared Moskowitz (D), and Texas Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee (D) and Colin Allred (D), among others.
Previously, Rep. Salazar introduced the Commission to Study Acts of Antisemitism in the United States Act, which was a bipartisan effort that would establish a nonpartisan and nonpolitical commission that would study the facts and causes surrounding increased levels of antisemitism in the country.
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