Name of Monument
No official name
Who/What is Commemorated?
The destroyed Jewish communities of Europe
Description
The memorial comprises the outside roof of a museum wing that was added in 1996 to a preexisting building which was adaptively repurposed for museum use. That building was replaced with a larger structure in 2019, but the wing with the memorial was retained. The memorial wing is a reinforced concrete wedge that begins at ground level to the right of the museum's entrance and rises precipitously to a height of 40 feet. The sloping roof is clad entirely with stone plates with the names of destroyed Jewish communities, making the entire sloping face of the building resemble a massive gravestone.
The wing’s most visually arresting feature is an enormous dark brick cylinder that bisects the wedge and appears perched on top of it. This structure, which now houses the entrance gallery to the core exhibition on the ground floor and the Samuel Bak gallery upstairs, bears an obvious resemblance to a crematorium smokestack. As such, it is the museum's most historically resonant element. Additionally, in front of the memorial are 6 upright steel I-beams that are connected by strands of wire. These symbolize the 6 million victims of the Holocaust, and the uprights and wires recall concentration camp fencing.
Inscriptions
On a rectangular black granite plaque, in English:
The names inscribed on these stones
represent only a fraction of the Jewish
communities destroyed during the Nazis’
attempt to annihilate the Jews of Europe.
These communities were the ancestral
Homes of Holocaust survivors.
1939-1945
On the raised metal sign, in English:
Destroyed Communities Memorial
In Memory of Linda and Morris I. Penn and Riva Kremer
By Their Children, Grandchildren, and Great-Grandchildren
[two other plaques at ground level list names of donors]
Commissioned by
Holocaust Museum Houston