Obj. ID: 53434
Modern Jewish Art Holocaust Memorial in Ann Arbor, MI, USA, 1994
Name of Monument
Holocaust Memorial
What/Who is commemorated
Six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust
Description
The Holocaust monument is situated in a small park on the site of a Jewish cemetery demolished in 1990 (see here) on the University of Michigan campus. The memorial is accessed from Washington Street through a small concrete path flanked by two posts. On the right-hand side of the path, a large bronze plaque about the Holocaust and Raoul Wallenberg is placed on the ground.
The Holocaust monument is a bronze statue showing a sitting human figure wrapped in long cloths. Its head is burrowed in its right arm so that the face cannot be seen. The right arm of the statue is bent and its fist is attached to the left shoulder. The left arm is lifted with an open palm.
According to the website of the Ann Arbor District Library, which quotes from the Arts and Culture website of the University of Michigan: “This was the first such memorial placed at a public university in the United States. It is not clear if the figure is a man or a woman, which is what the artist Leonard Baskin intended. ‘It’s ambivalent. The figure is in some sort of misery, wrapped up entirely in himself.’ Baskin said the fist ‘portrays deep and powerful anger,’ the other arm is ‘far more felicitous, raised possibly in mercy, forgiveness, tenderness, gentleness, all of those qualities’." (https://aadl.org/steve_jensen_3976)
Inscriptions
Plaque in front of the statue:
In memory of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust
In memory of the millions more destroyed by prejudice
and hatred during World War II.
In memory of those righteous and courageous few who risked
their lives to save the victims of Nazism.
May this memorial inspire us to resist tyranny and inhumanity
wherever and whenever they threaten.
A gift of
The Ann Arbor Holocaust Memorial Foundation
March 13, 1994
Plaque on the righthand side of the path:
The period of Nazi rule in Germany (January 1933 to May 1945)
and particularly the years of the Second World War (1939–
1945) saw the attempted annihilation of the Jews of Europe
and the enslavement and destruction of millions of people
from many nations. During the Holocaust six million Jews –
including on and a half million Jewish children – were murdered.
Nazi Germany’s system of concentration camps, ghettos, murder
squads and killing centers engulfed Europe, and attempted
to destroy ethnic populations and entire cultures. The horrifying
success of the Nazi plan required the cooperation of hundreds
of thousands of willing participants and the acquiescence or
indifference of millions more.
Here we honor Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat whose
heroic actions to save tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews
in 1944 are a contrast of the collaboration and silence which
dominated Europe. A 1935 graduate of the University of Michigan
College of Architecture, Raoul Wallenberg was taken captive
by Soviet forces at the end of World War II, disappearing from
sight but not from memory.
Commissioned by
The Ann Arbor Holocaust Memorial Foundation
sub-set tree:
| Raoul Wallenberg Plaza, 915 E Washington St., Ann Arbor, MI
Bronze base of the statue:
Width: 151.5 cm
Depth: 190.5 cm
Plaque in front of the statue:
63.5 cm x 49.5 cm
Plaque on the righthand side of the path:
76 cm x 81.5 cm
Far left corner of the base: Leonard Baskin / 1993
Text from website “Local Wiki” (https://localwiki.org/ann-arbor/Raoul_Wallenberg_Plaza):
“The small park east of the Rackham Building and west of Fletcher Street was the site of the first Jewish cemetery in Michigan, established in 1848. After the graves were disinterred in 1901 and moved to various other locales as the final step in decommissioning the adjacent early village burial ground, the land sat empty as a small green extension of Felch Park.”
“In 1988 Ann Arbor City Council passed a resolution to create a Holocaust memorial. A not-for-profit group, the Ann Arbor Holocaust Memorial Foundation, was created to direct the project and secure the needed funds. It was determined to commission a statue by noted American sculptor Leonard Baskin, and in the six years between the resolution and the statue and plaza's dedication, private donors contributed over $250,000.”
“It seemed obvious to the members of the foundation, as well as representatives of both the University and the city council, that the logical place for the memorial was the former Jewish cemetery that had lain dormant for years. It was decided to name the area surrounding and adjacent to the commissioned statue as Raoul Wallenberg Plaza in honor of the 1935 U-M alumnus and humanitarian.”
“On the day of the dedication, 1994-03-13, a special piece of music was played on the Burton Tower's grand carillon by carillonneur Margo Halsted. Called Threnody (Song of Lamentation), it was composed by Ellwood Derr, a U-M professor of music theory. The ceremony itself was held in Rackham Auditorium and was overseen by U-M President James Duderstadt. The keynote speech was given by Todd Endelman, the University's William Haber Professor of Modern Jewish History.” (https://localwiki.org/ann-arbor/Raoul_Wallenberg_Plaza)