Obj. ID: 54505
Memorials Memorial to the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Brandeis University in Waltham, MA, USA, 1967, 1974
Name of Monument
“Job” (Holocaust Memorial Monument)
What/Who is commemorated?
Martyrs of the Holocaust 1933-1945
Description
The monument, now shaded by trees and backed by bushes, is set beside the Berlin Chapel, one of three university chapels. It consists of several elements that share a ground-level concrete base, approximately 15 feet long. The focal point of the monument is the bronze standing figure of Biblical Job, depicted wrapped in a torn prayer shawl and weeping as he looks upward. The figure stands on a rough-hewn base of bronze, all cast together. The artist’s signature with the date “1967” is inscribed on the base.
The bronze sculpture sits on a larger hexagonal base made of black granite. On the front face of the base is an English inscribed dedication including a passage from Lamentations. On the adjacent sides of the hexagonal base are similar dedicatory inscriptions in Hebrew and Yiddish.
This base and sculpture are flanked by two thick black upright rectangular polished granite slabs with the names of killing sites inscribed on each.
Lying flat on the ground in front of the monument are two bronze plaques dated 1974. One of these repeats the dedication to the Six Million Holocaust victims. The other announces that ashes from Treblinka are buried on the site. This plaque was amended also to mention the presence of ashes from Auschwitz.
Inscriptions
On central panel, in English:
“MY EYES SHED STREAMS OF WATER
OVER THE RUIN OF MY POOR PEOPLE.”
LAMENTATIONS 3:48:
IN MEMORY OF THE MARTYRS
OF THE HOLOCAUST 1933-1945
JEWISH HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS IN BOSTON
On left panel, in Hebrew:
פלגי מים תרד עיני
על שבר בת עמי (איכה ג מה)
לזכר קדושי השואה
חורבן תרצ''ג – תש'ה ה'יד
שארית הפליטה בבוסטון
Translation: My eyes shed streams of water over the ruin of my poor people (Lamentations 3:48) // In memory of the martyrs of the Holocaust// Destruction [hurban, another name for Holocaust] of 1933-1945 // Jewish Holocaust survivors in Boston
On right panel, in Yiddish:
אין אנדענק פון די קדושים
פון הורבן תרצ''ג-תש''ה ה'יד
די שארית הפליטה אין באסטאן
Translation: In memory of the martyrs of the Holocaust of 1933-1945 // God revenge their blood // Jewish Holocaust survivors in Boston
On plaque on ground, in English:
THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED
IN MEMORY OF
THE SIX MILLION JEWS
WHO PERISHED DURING THE NAZI REGIME IN EUROPE
On plaque on ground, in Hebrew:
פ''נ
שרידי עצמות מגיא ההרגה בטרבלינקא
Translation: Here are buried bones from the killing pit of Treblinka
On plaque on ground, in English:
INTERRED HERE ARE ASHES FROM
EXTERMINATION CAMP OF TREBLINKA
AND AUSCHWITZ [this line was added later]
On plaque on ground, in Hebrew:
התחיינה: העצמות האלה... ונתתי רוחי בכם וחייתם
Translation: Can these bones live?... And I will put my spirit in you, and you shall live! [=Ezekiel 37:14]
On plaque on ground, in English and Hebrew:
CAN THESE BONES LIVE?... AND I WILL PUT
MY SPIRIT IN YOU, AND YOU SHALL LIVE! [=Ezekiel 37:14]
April 1974 [Magen David] ניסן תשל"ד [=Nisan, 5734]
Left side slabs
*AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU
*BELZEC
*CHELMNO
*MAJDANEK
*SOBIBOR
*TREBLINKA
BABI YAR
BERGEN-BELSEN
BUCHENWALD
DACHAU
DRANCY
GURS
*DENOTES DEATH CAMP
Right side slab:
JASENOVIC
LWOW JANOWSKA
MALINES
MAUTHAUSEN
PONARY
RAVENBRUCK
STUTTHOF
THERESIENSTADT
TRANSNISTRIA
WESTERBORK
KLOOGA
!געדענק! זכור REMEMBER!
Commissioned by
Jewish Holocaust Survivors in Boston
sub-set tree: 
| Brandeis University (Chapels Field, near Berlin Chapel and the Loop Road)
Epitaph
List of sites / camps / killing places
Quote from Jewish sources | Bible | Writings | Lamentations | Lamentations 3:48
Hebrew traditional formulas | God revenge their blood היד
Hebrew traditional formulas | Here is buried פנ
Hebrew traditional formulas | Remember! זכור
Quote from Jewish sources | Bible | Prophets | Ezekiel 37:14
|
Bronze
Left: 53" x 12" 34" on 28" base; Right: the same. Center: 4 ft x 19" x 6" on base of 14" x 31" and on pedestal: brick and slab.
Inscribed in the bronze base of Job statue:
Nathan Rapoport
1967
From Brandies website: "Rapoport’s bronze sculpture of the keening Job stands outside the Berlin Chapel in the architectural grouping of three structures honoring three Western religious faiths: Judaism, Catholicism and Protestantism. The chapels’ design was based on the master plan created by the Finnish architect Eero Saarinen, and they were built by the firm of Harrison Abramovitz in 1955."
Yaffe describes the origin of the Job statute in his 1980 book, as recounted to him by Rapoport
“I think,” Rapoport says, “that the rebirth of Israel and of the Jewish people are an echo of the book of Job. Our people kept faith. We did not change our beliefs, our ethics, and we came out stronger from our ordeals.” Job is also, in its creator’s view, a single figure who can stand for the Six Million. As if to emphasize that point, he carries an Auschwitz number on his forearm.
In planning the work, Rapaport looked for some time for a face, a figure he could use for a model of Job, but without success, he tells me.
Then one day a man walked into his studio, and “at that moment I saw that here was my Job. Such a tragic face. He had lost, within a short time of each other, both an only son and a wife. He was lonely and his whole body wept. He came to me for something to commemorate his son, and that is how I came to make Job -- not to commemorate one boy, but all the sons, and daughters, and mothers and fathers who had perished in the gas chambers and crematoria and before the firing squads with which the Nazis meted out death to Jews.”
“As you can see,” Rapoport points out the man is sinking into the ground, but his spirit is lifted up to God. He is praying. His body is covered with a ragged tallit. That is his armor, the symbol of his indestructible belief. He is ready to go to his death for Kiddush Hashem, the sanctification of God, with the eternal prayer of the Jewish people attesting to their faith in the one God, Shma Israel…,”
Other casts of the Job statue are located at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem (described as the original), and Forest Park, Queens, New York.
Donner, Batia, Nathan Rapoport: A Jewish Artist, (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Tzvi and Givat Haviva: Yad Yaari, 2014) [Hebrew]
Scott, Nancy, "Nathan Rapaport, Job (1967)," Brandeis University Web Site, https://www.brandeis.edu/arts/sculpture.html (accessed June 23, 2024)
Yaffe, Richard. Nathan Rapoport Sculptures and Monuments (New York: Shengold, 1980).
“Forest Park,” New York City Department of Parks and Recreation., https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/forest-park/monuments/1766,%20(Queens,%20New%20York (accessed June 23, 2024)