Unit 1012: The Victims' Families For The Death Penalty.: 2016 NATIONAL DAY OF REMEMBRANCE FOR MURDER VICTIMS (1900 TO 1990)

National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://victimsfamiliesforthedeathpenalty.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/national-day-of-remembrance-for-murder.html]

For this year’s 2016 National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims, Unit 1012 will remember 188 murdered victims + victims of war crimes from the United States and around the world. Let us remember how they lived on this earth and treasure their memories.

"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

For this observance, we will present murdered victims from 1900 to 1990:

William McKinley

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

Paul Schneider as a student

2. Paul Robert Schneider (August 29, 1897 – July 18, 1939) was an Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union pastor who was the first Protestant minister to be martyred by the Nazis. He was murdered with a strophanthin injection at Buchenwald.

Henio Zytomirski

(25 March 1933 to 9 November 1942)

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://peliculasdelholocaustojudio.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/henio-zytomirski.html]

3. Henio Zytomirski (Polish: Henio Żytomirski, Hebrew: הניו ז'יטומירסקי; 25 March 1933 – 9 November 1942) was a Polish Jew born in Lublin, Poland who was murdered at the age of 9 in a gas chamber at Majdanek concentration camp, during the German Nazi occupation of Poland. Henio became an icon of the Holocaust, not only in Lublin but all over Poland. His life story became a part of the curriculum which is learnt in the general education system in Poland. The "Letters to Henio" project is held in Lublin since 2005. Henio Zytomirski is one of the heroes of "The Primer" permanent exhibition at barrack 53 of the Majdanek Museum, an exhibition which is dedicated to children who were in the camp.

Janusz Korczak and the children, memorial

Children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today. They are entitled to be taken seriously. They have a right to be treated by adults with tenderness and respect, as equals. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be - The unknown person inside each of them is the hope for the future. - Janusz Korczak

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/779550]

4. 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.

Sophie Scholl

5. Sophia Magdalena Scholl (9 May 1921 – 22 February 1943) was a German student and Christian anti-Nazi political activist, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany.

She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich (LMU) with her brother Hans. As a result, they were both executed by guillotine. Since the 1970s, Scholl has been extensively commemorated for her anti-Nazi resistance work.

She was the daughter of the liberal politician Robert Scholl, an ardent critic of the Nazis.

Czesława Kwoka as an inmate at Auschwitz concentration camp in late 1942 or early 1943 Photograph credit: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and Wilhelm Brasse

6. Czesława Kwoka (15 August 1928 Wólka Złojecka – 12 March 1943 Auschwitz) was a Polish Catholic child who died in the Auschwitz concentration camp at the age of 14. She was one of the thousands of child victims of German World War II crimes against Poles. She died at Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Poland, and is among those memorialized in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum indoor exhibit called Block no. 6: Exhibition: The Life of the Prisoners.

Helmut Hesse the youngest martyr of the Confessing Church

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.ekir.de/www/service/6900.php]

7. Pastor Helmut Hesse (May 11, 1916 to November 24, 1943). He was the youngest martyr of the Confessing Church during World War II.

8. The Blessed Bernhard Lichtenberg (3 December 1875 – 5 November 1943) was a German Roman Catholic priest and theologian, who died while in the custody of forces of the Third Reich. He has been awarded the title of Righteous among the Nations, and has been beatified by the Catholic Church.

6-year-old Tanya Savicheva, 1936

9. Tatyana Nikolayevna Savicheva (Russian: Татья́на Никола́евна Са́вичева), commonly referred to as Tanya Savicheva (January 23, 1930 – July 1, 1944) was a Russian child diarist who endured the Siege of Leningrad during World War II.

Claus von Stauffenberg’s Quote

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://izquotes.com/quote/176861]

10. Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, commonly referred to as Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (German: [ˈklaʊs ˈʃɛŋk ˈɡʁaːf fɔn ˈʃtaʊfənbɛɐ̯k]), Claus von Stauffenberg, or Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944), was a German army officer and aristocrat who was one of the leading members of the failed 20 July plot of 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler and remove the Nazi Party from power. Along with Henning von Tresckow and Hans Oster, he was one of the central figures of the German Resistance movement within the Wehrmacht. For his involvement in the movement he was executed by firing squad shortly after the failed attempt known as Operation Valkyrie.

Anne Frank pictured in 1940

11. 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.

Ghetto Litzmannstadt: Children rounded up for deportation to the Kulmhof death camp

12. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German: [ˈdiːtʁɪç ˈboːnhœfɐ]; February 4, 1906 – April 9, 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi and founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential, and many have labelled his book The Cost of Discipleship a modern classic.

Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer became known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship. He strongly opposed Hitler's euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. He was also involved in plans by members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office) to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and executed by hanging in April 1945 while imprisoned at a Nazi concentration camp, just 23 days before the German surrender.

Solomon Mikhoels

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.kinoglaz.fr/u_fiche_person.php?lang=fr&num=5236]

13. Solomon (Shloyme) Mikhoels (16 March [O.S. 4 March] 1890 – 13 January 1948) was a Soviet Jewish actor and the artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater. Mikhoels served as the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during the Second World War. However, as Joseph Stalin pursued an increasingly anti-Semitic line after the War, Mikhoels' position as a leader of the Jewish community led to increasing persecution from the Soviet state. In 1948, Mikhoels was murdered on the orders of Stalin and his body was run over to create the impression of a traffic accident.

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]

14. to 26. 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.

Leib Kvitko

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://calvertjournal.com/comment/show/1427/owen-hatherley-revolution-to-repression-yiddish-literature]

Leib Kvitko (Russian: Лейб Квитко, Yiddish: לייב קוויטקאָ‎) (October 15, 1890 – August 12, 1952) was a prominent Yiddish poet, an author of well-known children's poems and a member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC). He was one of the editors of Eynikayt (the JAC's newspaper) and of the Heymland, a literary magazine. He was executed in Moscow on August 12, 1952 together with twelve other members of the JAC, a massacre known as the Night of the Murdered Poets. Kvitko was rehabilitated in 1955.

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".

27. 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/]

28. 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.

Etan Patz

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSsr=41&GSmpid=45426922&GRid=7281029&]

29. Etan Kalil Patz (October 9, 1972 - declared legally dead in 2001) was an American child who was six years old when he disappeared in Lower Manhattan, New York City, on May 25, 1979. He is the most famous missing child of New York City. His disappearance helped spark the missing children's movement, including new legislation and various methods for tracking down missing children, such as the milk-carton campaigns of the mid-1980s. Etan was the first ever missing child to be pictured on the side of a milk carton.

Terri Winchell

30. Terri Winchell (April 10, 1963 to January 8, 1981)

Photo of Adam John Walsh, late son of America's Most Wanted host John Walsh.

31. Adam John Walsh (November 14, 1974 – July 27, 1981) was an American boy who was abducted from a Sears department store at the Hollywood Mall in Hollywood, Florida, on July 27, 1981, and later found murdered and decapitated. Walsh's death earned national publicity. His story was made into the 1983 television film Adam, seen by 38 million people in its original airing. Walsh's father, John Walsh, became an advocate for victims of violent crimes and the host of the television program America's Most Wanted.

Convicted serial killer Ottis Toole confessed to the boy's murder but was never convicted for this specific crime due to loss of evidence and a recanted confession. Toole died of liver failure on September 15, 1996. Although no new evidence has come forth, on December 16, 2008, police announced that the Walsh case was now closed as they were satisfied that Toole was the murderer.

Officer Daniel Faulkner

32. 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.

Reserve Deputy John Jamison

33. Deputy Reserve John B. Jamison (END OF WATCH: September 6, 1982)

Jeanine Nicarico

34. The Jeanine Nicarico murder case was a complex and influential homicide investigation and prosecution which took place in DuPage County, Illinois that sent two men to prison who were later exonerated and released, and contributed to the death penalty moratorium imposed by then-Governor George H. Ryan.

In July 2009, Brian Dugan pleaded guilty to the murder of Nicarico after having previously confessed to the crime. Dugan is jailed on two unrelated murder charges, one of a 27-year old woman and one which began with the abduction of two seven-year old girls, one of whom escaped and the other of whom was raped and murdered by Dugan. On November 11, 2009, after deliberating about 10 hours over two days, a DuPage County jury sentenced Brian Dugan to death for the rape and murder of Jeanine Nicarico 26 years earlier.

Marsalee Ann Nicholas

(March 6, 1962 to November 30, 1983)

35. Marsalee Ann Nicholas (March 6, 1962 to November 30, 1983)

Leslie Shelley

36. Leslie Shelley (May 1969 to April 22, 1984)

Donna Schnorr, a 27-year-old nurse from Geneva.

37. Nurse Donna Schnorr (March 30, 1957 to July 15, 1984)

Reverend Jean Ernest Darter

38. Reverend Jean Ernest Darter (February 29, 1892 to August 27, 1984)

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

39-42. 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.

Melvyn Otterstrom had joined a Green Beret unit. (Otterstrom family photo)

43. Melvyn Otterstrom (May 1, 1947 to October 9, 1984)

Anita Cobby

(Source: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/young/cobby/6.html)

44. Anita Lorraine Cobby (2 November 1959 – 2 February 1986) was an Australian registered nurse and beauty pageant winner. At 26 years old, she was abducted from Blacktown, and raped and murdered at nearby Prospect, on the evening of 2 February 1986. Five men, including three brothers, were convicted of her murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, never to be released.

Kevin Swaney

45. On this date, July 20, 1987, 16-year-old Kevin Swaney and his friend, Carlos Froyan Cruz-Ramos were murdered by Daniel Wayne Cook in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Justice came 25 years later, when Daniel Cook was put to death by lethal injection in Arizona on August 8, 2012.

Janine Balding

46. The murder of Janine Balding was the killing of a woman in New South Wales, Australia by multiple perpetrators. 20-year-old Janine Balding was raped and murdered by a gang of five youths on 8 September 1988. Balding's murder is often compared to the 1986 murder of Sydney nurse Anita Cobby.