Obj. ID: 53634  Rhode Island Holocaust Memorial in Providence, RI, USA, 2015

Name of Monument
Rhode Island Holocaust Memorial

What/Who is commemorated
6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and the survivors who settled in Rhode Island.

Description
The Holocaust Memorial is a sculpture garden, or roughly triangular shape, set within the large Memorial Park along Providence's River Walk. The monument is low and unobtrusive in comparison with the tall World War I Memorial (designed by Paul Cret) that stands nearby. The memorial features a winding stone path engraved with railroad tracks evoking the trains that took European Jews and others to concentration and death camps. Along the path stand six stone columns, representing the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. At the end of the path, in the center of the Memorial, sits a smooth elliptical stone, called the Life Stone.

The 6 main components to the memorial are: the outer curb, the entrance gate, the inner curb, the path, the columns, and the Life Stone.

The outer curb, made of light gray granite, lines the memorial. On it are the names of 15 concentration camps, chosen because they are the most recognizable.

Flanking the memorial is the entranceway consisting of two semi-rectangular granite pillars, the same dark grey as the columns. The pillars differ in size. Both pillars contain detailed inscriptions that face either side of the visitor, beckoning for them to engage.

Past the entrance gate, is a path of spotted gray stone overlaid with a design of washed-out, red train tracks. As the path continues, the tracks narrow. The path ends at a large smooth white elliptical stone placed on the ground that contrasts with the dark gray granite columns surrounding it. The stone represents in large form a stone of remembrance of the type placed on a Jewish grave,

Lining the path is the inner curb, lined with names of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Rhode Island following their liberation. As one reaches the Life Stone, the six memorial columns, shaped as differently-sized truncated elliptical cones.

Inscriptions
On side of entrance pillar facing out:

RHODE ISLAND
HOLOCAUST
MEMORIAL

On side of entrance pillar facing path: 

Singled out for
extermination
as part of a “final
solution” by the
Nazi regime,
more than six
million jews were
killed during the
Holocaust.

 May all of them –
victims, witnesses,
and survivors
alike – testify to the
memory of brutality
in the extreme, of
the will to survive it,
and the determina-
tion among all of us to
avoid committing
such atrocities in the
future.

 January 30, 1933
through May 8, 1945

On side of entrance pillar facing path:

"We do not want
our past to be our
children’s future."

-- Roman Kent
Holocaust survivor

On Outer curb – name of camps:

 Majdanek
Flossenburg
Ravensbruch
Stutthof
Mauthausen
Chelno
Belzec
Buchenwald
Bergen-Belsen
Treblinka
Sobibor
Dachau
Sachsenhausen
Theresienstadt
Auschwitz-Birkenau

Outer curb:

Names of sponsors and donors

Inner curb of path:

Names of survivors in Rhodes Island

Commissioned by
The Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island
The Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center
The Rhode Island Holocaust Memorial Committee