Obj. ID: 53623
Modern Jewish Art  Women's Holocaust Memorial in Greensboro, NC, USA, 2023

The monument is inspired by a photograph of five Jewish women taken on Monday, Dec. 15, 1941 moments before their execution in Liepāja, Latvia. The women were marched from the women's prison in freezing cold to a nearby beach called Skede where they were forced to strip to their underclothes, taken to the edge of a trench and shot dead in groups of 10. Many of the victims were photographed in their final moments by a Nazi photographer.

Artist Victoria Milstein made sketches, and a small maquette before embarking on the full-size clay version of the group sculpture. The figures are a little larger than lifesize. The final work was cast in bronze by Carolina Bronze Sculpture, a north Carolina foundry.

The interaction with the memorial through the camera is intended as an entry point to the educational component of the monument. Still, the memorial, since it is based on an historic photo and gives names to the figures presented, is both specific to them while still general in its purposes to commemorate all women and child victims of the Holocaust.

According to the project website, the Monument is intended as a community placemaking experience where the public not only remembers the Holocaust, but to be a place for "impactful Holocaust education. Honoring those who perished, the Monument conveys a powerful statement against the murder of women and children, antisemitism, genocide and all hate. The Monument is art that requires social engagement and the participation of its audience: the act of looking through the camera, where the spectator becomes a witness, to see and feel the opposite of what the Nazi photographer was documenting." (https://www.womenoftheshoahjp.com/)

The artist Victoria Milstein initiated this project after a visit to Auschwitz. Of the monument, she writes:

"We see the strength and the humility of generations of Jewish women from Liepaja, moments before they were murdered by Nazis in 1941. They stand in their innocence; their only crime was that they were Jews. The photo I used as inspiration for the monument was taken by a Nazi photographer to document the victories of the Nazi regime as propaganda for its German citizens. My hope is that each time one views the monument from that perspective, one becomes witness to exactly the opposite of what the Nazi photographer intended to document.

Standing arm-in-arm are five women in their last act, looking straight at us today, with grace, humanity and defiance. The older woman, asked to strip, stands in the center with her boots on as she clutches onto the arms of generations of women in her family. The two figures on the end of the grouping bring us physically into the sculpture, revealing an emotional narrative of their impending death. With a snap of the camera we almost can't comprehend the innocence that we see. One sees the subtle emotions of fear, disbelief, terror and even hope. The youngest, with her head bent, clutches her fists, communicating the human horror of the Holocaust and reminding us of the several million children that were exterminated.

I was very influenced by Rodin's sculpture of the "The Burghers of Calais" where each figure communicates the emotional journey of their impending death. When I first saw the photograph, I saw my sisters, Jewish women, and it changed me forever. You can't un-see what you have seen. [https://www.womenoftheshoahjp.com/story]

The reported cost of the monument was $725,000, $250,000 was appropriated by the North Carolina General Assembly from the General Fund and the rest was raised from private donations.

The monument is named in honor of Eva Weiner and Sofia Guralnik, women who saved their children, Shelly Weiner and Raya Kizhnerman, by hiding them in Nazi-occupied Poland for almost two years. Shelly Weiner is a resident of Greensboro and contributed the lead gift to enable the monument project to proceed.