Obj. ID: 44802
Memorials Holocaust Memorial in Temple Bat Yam of East Fort Lauderdale in Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA, 2004
To the main object: Temple Bat Yam of East Fort Lauderdale in Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA
Name of Monument
No official name
What/Who is commemorated?
Jewish victims of the Holocaust and American liberators
Description
The monument consists of an assemblage of objects and signage, assembled around a central case, recalling an Ark, that holds a Torah Scroll. The main display consists of a central Ark flanked by two side panels made with cracked glass to represent Kristallnacht. As you face the Memorial, the central panel holds a Holocaust Torah, from Kojetin, Czechoslovakia. The Torah scroll is set to Deuteronomy 25:17, which begins with the words "Zachor et asher asah l'cha Amalek” (Remember what Amalek did to you when you left Egypt.....)
The left panel contains the names of many of the death camps, and the right panel contains the words of Hannah Senech's "Eli, Eli," (officially called "Halicha L'Keysaria” (A Hike to Caesarea). The poem was composed in Palestine before she parachuted back into her homeland of Hungary during World War II and was captured and killed by the Nazis.
The figurative sculpture "The Soldier and the Survivor” sits on a cracked glass pedestal.
Inscriptions
On the left side of the memorial, in English, Hebrew, and English transliteration:
THESE WE REMEMBER
אלה אזכרה
AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU
| TREBLINKA | RAVENSBRUK |
| BELZEC | BUCHENWALD |
| SOBIBOR | DACHAU |
| SASCHENHAUSEN | MAUTHAUSEN |
| MAIDANEK | WARSAW GHETTO |
| WESTERNBORK | THERESIENSTADT |
On the right side of the memorial, in English, Hebrew, and English transliteration:
YIZKOR...
REMEMBRANCE
| O GOD, MY GOD | אלי אלי |
| I PRAY THAT THESE THINGS NEVER END: | שלא יגמר לעולם |
| THE SAND AND THE SEA, | החול והים |
| THE CRASH OF THE HEAVENS | רשרוש של המים |
| THE PRAYER OF THE HEART. | ברק השמים |
| Hannah Senesch | תפלת האדם |
|
|
Plaque in case with Torah scroll, in English:
THIS TORAH IS HELD IN TRUST
FOR THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF
KOJETIN, CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Plaque on the statue, in English:
The Soldier and the Survivor
By Wolf Kahn
Plaque on statue base of cracked glass, in English:
PRESENTED IN RECOGNITION OF THE
LIFETIME DEDICATION OF
ARTHUR E. KAHN
TO TEMPLE BAT YAM
Commissioned by
Temple Bat Yam
sub-set tree: 
| 5151 NE 14th Terrace, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33334
The Holocaust Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2004, on the night the congregation dedicated its renovated Sanctuary.
A small bronze sculpture of an American soldier carrying a concentration camp survivor is a tribute to the Allied soldiers who liberated the concentration camps. It was donated by Wolf Kahn, a local jeweler and sculptor (not to be confused with the more famous painter of the same name), who was the brother of a former president of TBY, Arthur Kahn
The milk can was donated by Gerry Cooper after he had attended a conference at the Holocaust Memorial in Washington on the archives of the Warsaw Ghetto, which were hidden in similar cans
The sculpture forms part of the shrine-like Holocaust memorial installation against the entrance wall of the sanctuary that include a Holocaust Torah from Moravia in the Czech Republic.
The central panel holds a Holocaust Torah, from Kojetin, Czechoslovakia, from which the last Jews were deported in 1942. It is one of five surviving scrolls from this Jewish community. The Kojetin Synagogue was transformed after the war into a Moravian Church (Kojetin is in the Moravian district of the former Czechoslovakia). The Pastor committed himself to preserving the Jewish character of the building (Coincidentally, TBY is established in a building that was originally built as the Moravian Church of Coral Ridge).
The Torah scroll is officially Holocaust Czech Torah #623, on longtern loan from the memorial Scrolls Project in London which has distributed approximately 1,400 scrolls to communities throughout the world. Temple Bat Yam received the Torah from the Memorial Scrolls Foundation through the Union of American Hebrew congregation.
More information about the Czech Torahs may be found at http://www.czechtorah.org/home.php and http://www.czechmemorialscrollstrust.org/.
According to the congregation’s website, “Though the damage it endured rendered the Torah scroll halachically not kosher, we nevertheless determined to use it for worship. This was a scroll the Nazis intended would never again be studied by Jews. We considered it a privilege, even a mitzvah, to see that they did not succeed. We semi-retired the Scroll from regular use only when we built the Memorial, which allowed the Scroll to be permanently open to view.”
"Temple Bat Yam Holocaust Memorial," Temple Bat Yam of East Fort Lauderdale, https://www.templebatyam.org/holocaust-memorial (accessed September 19, 2022)
"Temple Bat Yam Receives a Memorial to the Liberation of Concentration Camps," South Florida Sun-Sentinel, March 14, 2003, https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2003-03-14-0303120431-story.html (accessed September 19, 2022)