New England Holocaust Memorial

A view of the memorial from Congress street

The New England Holocaust Memorial is a memorial in Boston, Massachusetts. It is dedicated to the Jews who were killed in the Holocaust.

Information

Designed by Stanley Saitowitz and erected in 1995, the memorial consists of six glass towers that the visitor can walk under. Engraved on the towers are six million numbers that symbolize the six million killed in the Holocaust. There are also random messages on the towers. Underneath the towers, steam rises up through metal grates from a dark floor with twinkling lights on it.^[1]

Each tower symbolizes a different major concentration camp (Majdanek, Chełmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Bełżec, and Auschwitz-Birkenau), but can also be taken to be menorah candles, the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust (one million per column), and the six years that the mass extermination took place, 1939-1945.

Each tower consists of twenty-four individual panels of glass. Twenty-two of the panels are inscribed with seven digit numbers and two of the panels are inscribed with messages. In total there are 132 panels from the six towers inscribed with numbers, however each panel is identical. A single panel contains 17,280 unique numbers which are subsequently repeated throughout the memorial. Numbers are arranged in eight by ten blocks, with each block consisting of sets of six numbers arranged in a six by six grid. In total there are 2,280,960 non-unique numbers listed on the 132 panels.

The New England Holocaust Memorial is located near the Freedom Trail, and is only a few steps off the trail, making it a popular tourist attraction.^[2]

The site is maintained by the Boston National Historic Park and is located in Carmen Park, along Congress and Union Streets, near Faneuil Hall. Carmen Park was named in recognition of William Carmen's service to the community and his vision and leadership in creating the New England Holocaust Memorial.^[1]

The Memorial was targeted for destruction in a 2002 white supremacist terror plot.

Gallery

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Messages

On some of the panels of the glass towers are messages. One of the messages:

The raspberry

ILSE, A CHILDHOOD FRIEND of mine,
once found a raspberry in the camp
and carried it in her pocket all day
to present to me that night on a leaf.

IMAGINE A WORLD in which
your entire possession is
one raspberry and
you gave it to your friend.

New England Holocaust Memorial

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Introduction. - New England Holocaust Memorial
2. ^ Boston: Museum/Attraction Review: The New England Holocaust Memorial. - Frommers.com