Obj. ID: 46172
  Memorials  Holocaust Memorial Plaza in Philadelphia, PA, USA, 2018

Name of Monument

Horwitz-Wasserman Memorial Plaza

 What/Who is commemorated?

Jewish victims of the Holocaust

Description 

The plaza occupies a triangular plot of land bounded by the Benjamin Franklin Parkway on the north, 16th Street on the east, and Arch Street on the south.  The memorial plaza was designed around the already installed Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs by sculptor Nathan Rapoport, erected in 1964. That sculpture remains the dominant element in the new plaza design.

Monument to Six Million Martyrs in Philadelphia, PA, USA, 1964

The plaza is a public space with no gates, fences or other barricades. It is open to the public at all hours and is part of the monumental art and architecture of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia’s broad boulevard the runs from City Hall to the Art Museum and is the site and many works of sculpture, and several museums. The design is fairly open to link it the surrounding public walkways, and to allow visibility and safety for visitors.

One can enter the plaza from three sides, but the intended primary approach is from 16th Street – the eastern point of the triangle. The triangle symbolism is accentuated by the creation of a raised triangle – part platform and part open planting bed – immediately in front of the Rappoport monument. Several other triangular planters are placed on the plaza, proving symbolism and greenery.

In addition to Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs, there are five major design elements that are part of the memorial.

On the south side of the plaza, facing the Arch Street, are six rectangular pillars (in memory of the six million Jewish victims), set into an angled base wall that is about at the viewer’s chest height, but slopes downward from west to east.  The pillars have text panels – with bold white lettering on black backgrounds on each side that run flush the edge, for a total of 12 text panels. The texts are presented in pairs, contrasting the atrocities committed against Jewish people during the Holocaust with American constitutional rights and values to show, as one descriptive text claims “that this horrific event can never be repeated in the United States.” 

Across from the six text pillars, is a sapling, called the “Theresienstadt Tree” grown from a tree purportedly nurtured by imprisoned children at the Theresienstadt concentration camp. It is meant to symbolize life and hope for future generations.  A metal sign with explanatory text and a poem is set in the ground nearby.

Just to the west of the six pillars, is a long low wall, that angles to the north. On the outer part facing Arch Street is the donor wall, listing the names of contributors to the $9 million dollar plaza project.

On the inner part, facing the plaza, the wall is black, and near the center “joint” of the bent wall,  is a glass (or acrylic?) covered niche, within which is a looped video recording of a burning flame that is meant to recall the flames of the Holocaust, but also according to the designers, to represent hope, light and the commitment to never forget the Holocaust. 

At the west end of the plaza, on the far side of the wall with the flame,  is a tree grove intended to represent the woods that sheltered those who resisted and fought the Nazi regime.  

Nearby the grove, pieces of original train track from the railroad adjacent to the Treblinka extermination camp are embedded in the pavement in memory of those who were killed there. 

A mural is planned to be painted in 2025 for the large back wall of the plaza, behind and above the tree grove.

Special lighting is installed to make the plaza visible and feel accessible at night.

Inscriptions

At the entrance in large letters:

HORWITZ-WASSERMAN

HOLOCAUST

MEMORIAL PLAZA

A plaque laid at an angle:

Samuel "Sam" Wasserman was captured by the Nazis in 1942

and taken to the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland. His wife

and two young children were executed immediately upon arrival,

and Sam himself was forced into daily labor. Eventually,

however, Sam escaped from the camp during an organized

revolt. Sam then joined the resistance movement, continuing

to fight as a partisan against the Nazis. Wounded in battle by

a bullet, he was nursed back to health by a woman, Sophie,

who would become his second wife.

Soon after the war, while living in a displaced persons

camp in West Germany, Sam and Sophie had a daughter,

Shelley, and the new family then moved together to the

nascent country of Israel. The Wasserman family has

grown steadily ever since, now including

two grandchildren, David Adelman and Jami Adelman

Morgenstern, and four great-grandchildren, Jade and

Sage Adelman and Grant and Hudson Morgenstern.

Sam's values and resilience inspired the lives of

many, including his family friend, Alan Horwitz.

The name of this Memorial Plaza honors these

two people: Alan Horwitz, whose generous

contribution helped make it possible, and Sam

Wasserman, whose story reminds us both to

hope for the future and to never forget the

past.

In Loving Memory of Sam Wasserman

On the six vertical panels (12 texts in total):

HUMAN EQUALITY 

We hold these truths to be

self-evident, that all men are

created equal. That they are

endowed by their Creator with

certain unalienable rights. That

among these are Life, Liberty

and the pursuit of Happiness."

The Declaration of Independence

July 4, 1776

MASTER RACE

The Nazis divided the world into “superior” and

“inferior” races and identified a series of victim

groups.

Jews were the Nazis primary victims but far from being their

only ones.

The Nazis victimized trade unionists and social democrats

for what they did and Jehovah's Witnesses for what they

refused to do. They would neither swear allegiance to the

state nor register for the draft. The words “Heil Hitler” never

left their lips. The Nazis chose other victims for what they

were - Roma and Sinti (“Gypsies”) because they were

regarded as asocial, and male homosexuals because of

their behavior. German non-Jews with disabilities were

regarded as “useless eaters” and their lives “unworthy of

living”. An embarrassment to the master race. The Nazis

used gas chambers to murder these persons with

disabilities.

The Nazis regarded Jews as a cancer on German society

and considered the total annihilation of Jewish men,

women, and children as essential to the very survival of the

“master race”.

AMERICAN

DEMOCRACY 

The Constitution created three branches of

government, each of which is able to check and

balance the others.

The Legislative branch, composed of the House of

Representatives and the Senate, makes the law. The

Executive branch executes the law and is composed

Of the President, the Vice President, and their

executive appointees. The Judicial branch interprets

the law and is composed of the Supreme court and

lower federal courts.

The Bill of Rights, the Constitution’s first ten

Amendments, restrains the power of

Government, protecting citizens’ most essential

Freedoms.

TOTALITARIANISM

The Nazi government transformed Germany from a constitutional

democracy to a totalitarian regime, Imposing martial law and

subordinating the judiciary and the parliament to Adolf Hitler in his capacity

as supreme leader or “Fuhrer.” The military and the judiciary thus swore

allegiance not to the constitution or even the nation, but to a single

person. A policy known as the Fuhrer’s Princip gave Hitler's will the force of

law. The government possessed unlimited authority, including the power to

kill innocent civilians by the millions because they were Jews.

NATURAL RIGHTS 

In 1790 George Washington voiced the essential American value that

protected human freedom, religious and otherwise.

“It is now no more that toleration is spoken

of as if it were the indulgence of one class

of people that another enjoyed the exercise

of their inherent natural rights, for, happily,

the government of the United States, which

gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution

no assistance, requires only that they who

live under its protection should demean

themselves as good citizens in giving it on

all occasions their effectual support.”

George Washington letter of New Port Hebrew Congregation

August 18, 1790

NUREMBERG

LAWS 

The Nazi party introduced the Reich Citizenship Law

and the Law for the Protection of German Blood at its

annual rally in Nuremberg on September 15, 1935.

These “Nuremberg Laws” became the centerpieces

of anti-Jewish legislation, revoking citizenship from

Jews, even decorated World War 1 veterans and

those whose families had lived in Germany for

generations.

The laws prohibited marriage and sexual relations

between Jews and citizens of “German or kindred

blood,” and forbade women under 45 from working in

Jewish homes.

The Reich thus defined Jews not according to the

identity they affirmed or the religion they

practiced, but rather according to their blood,

leading to the removal of Jews from German society

and, ultimately, to genocide.

FREEDOM OF RELIGION 

The First Amendment of the Constitution forbids

Congress from promoting one religion over others and

from restricting an individual's religious practices.

Freedom of religion has become, in practice,

freedom for religion as Americans feel free to practice

their faith.

“Congress shall make no law

respecting an establishment of

religion, or prohibiting the free

exercise thereof.”

Constitution of the United States of America

Amendment 1

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION

For three days, starting November 9, 1938, Nazi Party

officials and others carried out orchestrated attacks

against Jews throughout Germany. The perpetrators set

fire to over 1000 synagogues, destroying Torah scrolls,

prayer books, and other sacred objects. They ransacked

over 7000 Jewish businesses and deported 30,000

Jewish men to concentration camps authorities ordered

police not to interfere, instructing Fire Brigades to protect

adjacent buildings but not synagogues. Many Germans

joined in the attacks many more stood idly by. These

pogroms came to be known by the sanitized name

Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken glass. From this

moment on, Jewish life in Germany became impossible

Kristallnacht was the beginning of the end.

PROTECTING LIFE AND LIBERTY

Constitution of the United States specifies that no person shall be

deprived of their life or liberty without a fair trial.

“No person shall be held to answer for a

capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless

on a presentment or indictment of a Grand

Jury… nor be deprived of life, liberty or

property, without due process of law, nor shall

private property be taken for public use,

without just compensation”.

Constitution of the United States

Amendment V

DEATH

CAMPS

In its first years the Nazi regime “Aryanized” Jewish property,

forcibly transferring it to non-Jewish ownership. In later

years, authorities seized Jewish property at will throughout

Germany’s occupied territories.

Ultimately, in 1941, the Nazis arrived at their ‘Final Solution

to the Jewish problem’, which called for the

annihilation of every Jewish man, woman, and child. All

Jews were to be killed - not as a matter of guilt or innocence,

but rather as one of state policy. Being Jewish became a

capital offense: six death camps were established with the

purpose of mass murder, which the Nazis termed

“extermination”.

LIBERATION

Leon Bass was born and raised in Philadelphia, The birthplace of America's

Constitutional Democracy and later became the principal of Philadelphia’s

Benjamin Franklin High School. He was a young African-American soldier

serving in a segregated army when he entered Buchenwald concentration

camp just after the German guards and executioners had fled.

“I remember going through those gates shortly

after our men had gone through, and I saw the

walking dead. I saw the human beings who

had been beaten, starved and tortured. They were

standing there, skin and bones dressed in

striped pajamas. They had skeletal faces with

deep-set eyes. They had sores on their bodies.

One man held out his hands, and they were

webbed together with scabs due to malnutrition.

Something happened when I walked through the

gates. My blinders came off. My tunnel vision

dissipated. And I began to realize that human

suffering is not delegated just to me and mine.

Human suffering touches everybody.

All people can suffer.”

BEARING WITNESS 

Dwight David Eisenhower Supreme Commander of Allied Forces

in Europe, wrote to general George Marshall of his trip to Ohrdruf

Concentration camp on April 12, 1945.

“The things I saw beggar description.

While I was touring the camp I

encountered three men who had been

inmates and buy 1 ruse or another had

made their escape. I interviewed them

through an interpreter. The visual

evidence and the verbal testimony of

starvation, cruelty, and bestiality were

so overpowering as to leave me a bit

sick. I made the visit deliberately in

order to be in a position to give first-hand

evidence of these things if ever, in the

future there develops a tendency to

charge these allegations merely ‘propaganda’”.

On metal sign near sapling tree:

Theresienstadt Tree

BRANCHES

OF OUR PEOPLE

15,000 children were deported to a camp at Theresienstadt in the Czech Republic. Fewer than 200 survived. The Nazi's allowed these ill-fated children to be educated as part of a promotional ploy to hide the camp's genocidal purpose. The children wrote poetry and painted pictures, expressing their circumstances to a world they would not live to see.

In 1943, teacher Irma Lauscher planted a silver maple tree in the camp. It was nurtured by children until liberation, upon which the survivors placed a sign at its base, proclaiming, "As the branches of this tree, so the branches of our people!" A flood later destroyed this etz chaim (tree of life), but not before its saplings were spread widely across the globe, from Jerusalem to San Francisco, and now Philadelphia. 

I'd like to go alone
I'd like to go alone
Maybe more of us,
A thousand strong,
Will reach this goal
Before too long.

Maybe more of us,
A thousand strong,
Will reach this goal
Before too long.

Alena Synkova 

On metal sign by Tree Grove:

Tree Grove

ESCAPE AND RESISTANCE

Forests hid sites of Nazi mass murder. Yet they also concealed

Sites of escape and resistance. In the forests in Greece,

Yugoslavia, and elsewhere, Jewish families braved heat and cold

in rustic camps. Scavenging for food, they tended the frail and

prepare the strong to fight.

The Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation

Dedicates these trees to all people who used the shadows of

forests to organize against Nazi ideology, as well as those who

found shelter under its canopies

 Commissioned by

New plaza created by Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation. Existing sculpture by Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Philadelphia with the Association of Jewish New Americans and the Federation of Jewish Agencies of Greater Philadelphia.