2014 TREE OF ANGELS CEREMONY

For this 2014 Tree of Angels Ceremony, Unit 1012 will remember and honor 24 murdered victims + victims of war crimes from the United States and around the world. This is similar to the 2014 National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims, where we remembered more than 55 murdered victims.

 

Adorned Tree of Angels

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.treeofangels.org/index.html]

 "So long as we live, they too shall live and love for they are a part of us as we remember them."

- Gates of Prayer

William McKinley

1. William McKinley (January 29, 1843 – September 14, 1901), the 25^th President of the United States. 

Janusz Korczak and the children, memorial

2. Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit (22 July 1878 or 1879 – August 1942), was a Polish-Jewish educator, children's author, and pediatrician known as Pan Doktor ("Mr. Doctor") or Stary Doktor ("Old Doctor"). After spending many years working as director of an orphanage in Warsaw, he refused freedom and stayed with his orphans when the institution was sent from the Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp, during the Grossaktion Warsaw of 1942.

13-year-old Anne Frank [PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/AnneFrank/AnneFrank01.html]

3. Anne Frank A.K.A Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (Dutch pronunciation: [ɑnəˈlis ˈɑnə maˈri frɑŋk], German pronunciation: [anəliːs ˈanə maˈʁiː fʁaŋk], pronunciation (help·info); 12 June 1929 – early March 1945) is one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Her wartime diary The Diary of a Young Girl has been the basis for several plays and films. Born in the city of Frankfurt in Weimar Germany, she lived most of her life in or near Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. Born a German national, Frank lost her citizenship in 1941. She gained international fame posthumously after her diary was published. It documents her experiences hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.

Do not forget the victims of the Holocaust during World War II:

The Hall of Names containing Pages of Testimony commemorating the millions of Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust.

On this date, August 12, 1952, 13 prominent Jewish intellectuals were murdered in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union. This case is also known as The Night of The Murdered Poets. Let us remember them and never forget the injustice they suffered under Joseph Stalin. 

Clockwise from top left: Peretz Markish, Itsik Feffer, Leyb Kvitko, Dovid Hofshteyn and Dovid Bergelson [PHOTO SOURCE: http://jewishcurrents.org/august-12-the-night-of-the-murdered-poets-2476]

Emmett Till in a photograph taken by his mother on Christmas Day 1954, about eight months before his murder. When the photo ran in the Jackson Daily News Till and his mother were given "a profound pathos in the flattering photograph", which "humanized the Tills".

4. Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Till was from Chicago, Illinois, visiting his relatives in Money, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region, when he spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the married proprietor of a small grocery store there. Several nights later, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J. W. Milam went to Till's great-uncle's house. They took Till away to a barn, where they beat him and gouged out one of his eyes, before shooting him through the head and disposing of his body in the Tallahatchie River, weighting it with a 70-pound (32 kg) cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire. Three days later, Till's body was discovered and retrieved from the river.

JFK on Forgiveness

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.pinterest.com/yslaso/kennedys/]

5. John F. Kennedy A.K.A John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), commonly known as "Jack" or by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from January 1961 until he was assassinated in November 1963.

Daniel J. Faulkner

6. Daniel J. Faulkner (December 21, 1955 – December 9, 1981): Faulkner was the youngest of seven children in an Irish Catholic family from Southwest Philadelphia. Faulkner's father, who drove a trolley car, died of a heart attack when Faulkner was five. Faulkner's mother went to work and relied on her older children to help raise him. Faulkner dropped out of high school, but earned his diploma and an associate's degree in criminal justice while serving in the United States Army. In 1975, he left the army, worked briefly as a corrections officer, and then joined the Philadelphia Police Department. Aspiring to be a city prosecutor, Faulkner enrolled in college to earn his bachelor's degree in criminal justice. He married in 1979.

Nurse Donna Schnorr (1957 to July 15, 1984)

7. Nurse Donna Schnorr (1957 to July 15, 1984). 

PHOTO SOURCE: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=100513/KermitAlexander

8-11. Kermit Alexander’s mother, sister and two nephews, ages 8 and 13, were murdered in South Central Los Angeles during a home invasion by members of the Rollin 60’s Neighborhood Crips, whose intended victims lived two doors away.

Polly Klaas

12. Polly Hannah Klaas (January 3, 1981 – October 1, 1993) is an American murder victim whose case gained national attention. At the age of twelve, she was kidnapped at knife point from her mother's home during a slumber party in Petaluma, California, on October 1, 1993. She was later strangled. Richard Allen Davis was convicted of her murder in 1996 and sentenced to death.

Tracie Joy McBride

13. Private Tracie Joy McBride was murdered by Louis Jones, Jr on February18, 1995. He was executed by lethal injection in Texas on March 18, 2003. We, the comrades of Unit 1012, will remember how Tracie live and not remember how she died. We encourage people to donate money to the Tracie Joy McBride Scholarship Fund. 

14. Michael Lyons (September 28, 1987 to May 17, 1996)

JonBenét Ramsey

15. JonBenét Patricia Ramsey (August 6, 1990 – December 25, 1996) was an American child beauty pageant queen who was murdered in her home in Boulder, Colorado, in 1996. The six-year-old's body was found in the basement of the family home about eight hours after she was reported missing during a police search of her home. She had been struck on the head and strangled. The case remains unsolved, even after several grand jury hearings, and continues to generate public and media interest.

Police Officer Larry Elwood Lasater Jr.

16. Police Officer Larry Elwood Lasater Jr. (End of Watch: Sunday, April 24, 2005)

Vivian Wolfe (left) and Javad Marshall Fields (right)

17-18. On this date, June 20, 2005, a couple, Javad Jay Marshall Fields and Vivian Wolfe were both gunned down in Aurora, Colorado. Robert Ray and Sir Mario Owens were both sentenced to death.

Channon Gail Christian, 21, and Hugh Christopher Newsom, Jr., 23.

19-20. Channon Gail Christian, 21, and Hugh Christopher Newsom, Jr., 23, were a couple from Knoxville, Tennessee. They were raped, tortured and murdered after being kidnapped early on the morning of January 7, 2007. Their vehicle had been carjacked. Five suspects were arrested and charged in the case. The grand jury indicted four of the suspects on counts of capital murder, robbery, kidnapping, rape and theft, while a fifth was indicted on the federal level.

Elizabeth Bipsy Amiran (January 20, 1982 to February 12, 2009)

21. Elizabeth Bipsy Amiran (January 20, 1982 to February 12, 2009)

Saskia Burke (November 6, 1993 to December 20, 2011)

22. Saskia Burke (November 6, 1993 to December 20, 2011)

Yvonne and Arjen Ryder, who were on board flight MH17. Pictured here in France during their holiday: "Arrived safely at Toul in France we on the boat enjoying a drink. After a long delay with train strikes....:-)"

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/mh17/victims-from-across-australia-lost-in-the-downing-of-mh17/story-fno88it0-1226994454239?nk=877b6d57fe0dc2030faf0bceba1ab4a3]

23-24. Arjen and Yvonne Ryder – a couple who was among the 298 victims of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 17, 2014.

There are times when those who grieved cannot be pleased. They can only be loved.

- Paula D'Arcy, in When Your Friend is Grieving