Obj. ID: 30203
Memorials  Holocaust Memorial in Bucharest, Romania, 2009

Name of the Monument

Who is commemorated?

Description

Carmen Levick in his article about the commemoration of the Holocaust in post-communist Romania described the monument: "The Central Memorial Building, a rectangular space that resembles a gas chamber, with one wall allowing the light in through a series of columns is accessed through uneven, zigzagged marble stairs. They lead down into the chamber, which, in addition to containing the names of Romanian victims of the Holocaust inscribed on the walls, hosts de-sacralized Jewish gravestones originally from the Jewish cemetery in Bucharest, destroyed by Antonescu's men. [...] The collection of stones, arranged haphazardly but still behind a display glass and softly lit, recreate, albeit artificially, the metaphor of destruction but also represent a collective monument to all the Romanian victims of the Holocaust who did not get their own headstones. [...] The sculptural objects scattered around the memorial building engage with the Holocaust as a historical event, Jewish and Romani culture, Christian symbolism and Romanian culture, creating an eclectic collection of imagery .... These objects include a conceptual sculpture of the Star of David; the Romani symbol of the wheel...; a representation of the Via Dolorosa as fragments of a train track; a metal container filled with stones cut by the artist himself; and a column of remembrance shaped out of rusty iron, connecting to both the atrocities of the Holocaust with its shape of an elongated chimney and to one of the most well-known Romanian artists, Constantin Brancusi, and his famous ‘Endless Column’. [Levick]

Inscriptions

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