Obj. ID: 46171
Memorials The Holocaust Reflection Garden at Bet Shalom Synagogue in Minnetonka, MN, USA, 2008
Memorial Name
Holocaust Reflection Garden
Who is Commemorated?
Jewish Holocaust Victims (“The Six Million Martyred”)
Description
Driving onto the synagogue property and turning right, one passes after about 100 meters flagpoles flying the American and Israeli flags. Then there is a small, landscaped garden. Across the road is a large pond which is at the center of the synagogue property. From the garden, looking across the pond, one sees the synagogue building.
At the entrance to the garden on the left is a boulder inscribed with the name of the garden and a dedication “to the memory of the six million martyred.” A short winding flagstone paved path leads to a wider paved area with six large boulders with smoothed flat tops. These are arranged irregularly on the right and suitable for seating. A low curved retaining wall built of cut stone blocks on the left, behind which, at about waist height, is an inscribed memorial stone lying flat, and beyond that are planted six memorial pine trees.
Names of relatives of synagogue members who perished “as well as names that our neighbors and other Jewish community members have requested” are inscribed on a memorial stone plaque. More names are added occasionally as the congregation becomes aware of them or when survivors die. The names are inscribed under a Hebrew quote from Rabbi Moshe Ben Ezra, with the English translation of the quote at the bottom of the stone.
Inscription
On boulder
HOLOCAUST
REFLECTION GARDEN
In memory of the six million martyred
Stone Plaque
In Hebrew:
הזכרון לא יזכר יותר ממה שנשכח
Translation: Memory cannot recall more than what was forgotten
In English:
Jewish G.I.'s who perished z"l
list of names
Memory cannot recall more than what was forgotten
- Moshe Ben Ezra
Comissioned By
Bet Shalom Synagogue
sub-set tree: 
| Bet Shalom Synagogue, 13613 Orchard Road
Memorial garden
Bet Shalom synagogue was founded in 1981. The congregation completed its building in suburban Minnetonka in 2002.
In his book Sacred Architecture: The Building of Bet Shalom (2017) about the building of the synagogue, Rabbi Norman Cohen writes that the garden, which was dedicated on June 8, 2008, is “open to everybody.” [and] “Every person, whether Jewish or not, young or old, has so much on which to reflect... Our connection to the Holocaust is eternal, not of our choice or cause; Nonetheless it has become an integral part of Jewish identity. Six million of our people were murdered. We have six large stones, natural seats on which to sit and contemplate, meditate, pray, and reflect. 6 pine trees also shade the garden.” “This garden is a place to contemplate all of this. It is public and private, an inclusive and intimate environment where we can bring whatever Holocaust memories and stories are important to us. Names are affixed on a special keystone within the garden.”
According to Cohen, the idea for the garden came from Dr. Fred Lyon, a Holocaust Survivor and an original Bet Shalom congregant. He wanted a place to memorialize family members murdered by the Nazis “as well as those who survived, and to teach about little-known events that also occurred during the Holocaust.” Lyons often talked about Jewish American soldiers captured during the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944-45 who were segregated from the other American prisoners, taken to a concentration camp, brutalized and finally murdered at the end of WWII.
Cohen, Norman, Sacred Architecture: The Building of Bet Shalom (Minneapolis, 2017), 11-15