Obj. ID: 44022
Memorials  Shalom Memorial Gardens in North Miami Beach, FL, USA, 1985

Memorial Name

No given name

Who is Commemorated?

Six million Jewish martyrs

Description:

The memorial is located near an entrance to the cemetery, within a large circular plot on the main paved entrance road, within a paved roundabout. The memorial consists of a large area of low walls in the shape of a Magen David. The lower part of the walls is of irregular stones and the upper part is of smooth concrete.  The spaces between the walls are set up as planters, but it is not known if they have been, or still are, used for flowers or other plants.

A unique carved marble relief slab is the center point of this memorial. The upright slab is slightly curved at the top culminating in a projecting Magen David. On either side of the Magen David, English and Hebrew dedicatory inscriptions are at the top of the relief. An inscription indicting the monument sponsor is carved on the separate base of the relief.

The sculpted representational relief is roughly divided into three sections. In the center filling almost the entire height of if carved relief, is the well-known figure of a boy with a cap, with his hands raised, taken from a photo from the Stroop Report of the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. The heads of two women, wearing kerchiefs and seen only from the shoulders up, are on either side of the of the boy at the level of his legs. They are in the forefront of the relief and appear to press against the “frame”.

To the left, at the far edge of the relief, are four figures: two couples each of a man with a hat and a woman with a kerchief. The sculptor provides some sense of distance. One couple is in the forefront, and the second - who are shown embracing - is set behind. Behind them carved in low relief, and behind the boy, is a concentration camp scene of barracks, barbed wire, and a guard tower.  A prone body – possibly a corpse – lies behind and to the side of the boy’s legs.

To the right of the boy, carved flames rise almost to his full height. The flames provide a background transition from the barracks and barbed wire to a brick structure with four arch openings: part of a crematorium. One of the kerchiefed women, and the head of a main in profile, are set against the lower level of the crematorium. The man’s mouth is open – perhaps in pain or protest. Low-relief representations of corpses are shown in the upper openings of the ovens.

The bases of two lighting fixtures – perhaps gas-lit memorial lights – are on either side of the relief slab base.

In front of the relief, set within one of the projecting triangles of the greater Magen David, are six triangular pink granite slabs fitted together, with a dedicatory inscription, and a list of several killing sites. In between the two inscribed columns of killing site names is inscribed a large number “6” and within this is inscribed “one million children.”

Flagpoles with the American and Israeli flags flank the monument.

Inscriptions

At the top of the relief sculpture:

Remember Six Million

Hebrew

זכור ששה מליון קדושים

Translation: Remember six million martyrs

At the bottom of the relief sculpture:

Yiddish

ניט פארגעסן 1945 - 1939 ניט פארגעבן

Translation: Not forgotten  1939 - 1945  Not forgiven

David Ben Gurion Culture Club Inc. - "Survivors of the Holocaust"

Yiddish

נעדענק

Hebrew

זכור

English Transliteration

Zachor

Translation: Remember

Nations shall not lift up sword against nation
neither shall men learn war anymore
In memory of the Six Million Jewish Martyrs who
perished at the hands of the nazis

Auschwitz     Bergen
Birkenau     Belsen
Treblinka     Mauthausen
Buchenwald      Stutthof
Maidanek     Belzec
Dachau     Babi Yar

 Hebrew

יזכור
זעקם מיליאן קדושים

Translation: We will remember the cries of the millions martyred

1985
תשמ''ו

Between the lists of Concentration Camps (above)

One
Million
Children

Commissioned by

David Ben Gurion Culture Club Inc. – “Survivors of the Holocaust”