BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey gathered Tuesday with top legislative Democrats to remember the Holocaust, which she said “began when society accepted scapegoating, silence and the erosion of democratic norms.”
The Senate adopted a resolution Tuesday to recognize the 81st anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp and International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The House adopted a similar resolution Jan. 20. The United Nations General Assembly designated Jan. 27 as a day to remember the six million Jewish people killed in the Holocaust and the millions of others killed by Nazi persecution.
“This day not only asks us to mourn, but to pay attention to history, to warning signs and to the consequence of indifference. As survivors have reminded us, remembrance is not a passive act, it is something that requires both individual and collective engagement and effort,” Healey said. “We reject antisemitism completely, but it is sad and shocking to have to say this today: hatred and scapegoating should never, ever be used as political tactics. We’ve seen that happen recently in our country.”
Healey said the state is committed to implementing the recommendations of the Commission on Antisemitism, which released a report in December that offers a path forward for navigating discrimination in areas like K-12 schools, law enforcement and public safety, and workplace settings.
Senate President Karen Spilka recalled her grandfather’s departure from then-Russia in 1906, when he was protesting in defense of religious and political beliefs.
“He woke up one morning and found his best friend hanging in the village square,” Spilka said. “I think his father, my great-grandfather, knew that he would be next, and so he sent Joseph to America, the land of the free, to save his life. I remember every day that if my grandfather had not escaped, and if America had not welcomed him with open arms, I literally would not be here today.”
She also recalled living in a house “shaped by” her father’s untreated post-traumatic stress disorder, connected to what he witnessed when he was liberating people from a concentration camp as a World War II Army soldier.
House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz reflected on his grandparents’ experience fighting through “countless nights, countless days, countless arrests for being Jewish in different parts of the world.” Michlewitz said his family didn’t speak about it, and so he didn’t realize the extent of his family’s connection to the Holocaust until he was roughly high school age.
“Each passing year, our responsibility grows greater and greater, to remember, to educate and to confront hatred wherever it happens and wherever it comes in front of us,” the North End Democrat said.
Holocaust survivor Magda Bader now shares her experience arriving at Auschwitz at the age of 14 with students, as a way to further Holocaust education. She spoke about losing track of time in the concentration camp, and later escaping into the forest surrounding a labor camp she had been transferred to in Germany. Speaking about the people who helped her find places to live and get an education after she escaped, Bader said, “I’ve built up a feeling that people can be nice to each other.”
“I’m not just anxious to tell them about the sad story, but I want to tell them that other humans can be human to each other, and ignore the color of hair or color of skin,” Bader said.
Bader added, “Somehow there were elements who did not see that the Jews should be alive, and we did not notice that early enough, or there was nobody who was willing to stand up and really protect the people.”
The Holocaust Legacy Foundation’s Holocaust Museum Boston is slated to open in late 2026. Co-founder, president and CEO of the Legacy Foundation Jodi Kipnis noted that a diminishing number of Holocaust survivors are alive to share firsthand testimony of their experiences. Remembering and educating people about the Holocaust is part of ensuring something like it never happens again, she said, calling education “a democratic act.”
“Adolf Hitler did not seize power in a vacuum. He came to power through a democratic system that failed to protect its people and its principles,” Kipnis said. Some of her comments echoed Healey, who told attendees that “the Holocaust did not begin with camps and killings.”
“It began when society accepted scapegoating, silence and the erosion of democratic norms. That’s why remembrance matters. It reminds us what happens when people stop seeing one another as fully human,” Healey added.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and his sons Jonathan and Josh joined the State House event Tuesday.
“We love the leadership of this state,” Jonathan Kraft said at the podium. “You look around at so many of the other states in America today that allegedly have progressive, open-minded liberal leadership, yet they won’t acknowledge antisemitism. They won’t talk about it. They try to sweep it under the rug.”
Robert Kraft founded the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism in 2019 and launched the nonprofit Blue Square Alliance Against Hate in 2025 with the intention of educating Americans about Jewish hate.
“Think about it — if people of the Jewish faith wanted to go worship at their house of worship, is, in the year 2026 in the United States of America, they have to have armed guards in front of their synagogues, is that right? Should that happen?” Robert Kraft said Tuesday, after embracing Spilka on his walk up to the podium.
“I’m asking everyone in this room when they see any kind of hatred, do not be quiet, against people of color, people for religion, for whatever reason, discrimination. Please stand up and be counted,” Robert Kraft said. “We know that 80% of Americans are great people and don’t want — they don’t understand how serious this problem is.”