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| towering column of the New England Holocaust Memorial |
What is the role of memorials?
How should they be constructed?
Where should they be situated?
All memorials are not created equal. Some are extremely graphic, others are abstract and cerebral evoking contemplation. Some are prominent in the landscape/cityscape, others may blend into their settings too often passed unnoticed and not respected for what they represent. Despite diversity in design and placement, all memorials should be on the same page - helping us remember and understand the past. But without accompanying background material, either text, audio, video, or that provided by a docent, the experience of engaging a memorial may be devoid of context and unfortunately somewhat sterile.
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The New England Holocaust Memorial (NEHM), rising up from a section of Boston's historic Freedom Trail is a stunning construct: six glass towers, each representing one million Jews murdered during the Holocaust years and each named at the base for a death camp. It was a time of complete breakdown in democratic and moral society.
Jews were systematically deprived of their rights and ultimately their humanity. In effect they were reduced to a sequence of digits - numbers that are now etched into the glass panels of the towers.
The numbers serve as silent witnesses while vapors of steam, recalling victims' last breaths and crematoria smoke of their incinerated bodies, continuously float upward from the cauldrons at the base of each tower. Those darkest of times leave an indelible stain on the twentieth century.
But passersby often walk through the memorial seeing it as a pathway to and from a nearby T-station and not as sacred space for reflection, remembrance, grieving, or call for pro-action. In this way the memorial's message is frequently missed.
This cannot stand. This should not stand. And now twenty-five years after the memorial was dedicated, it will not. In a twist of logic, a swastika spray painted on a public space became the engine of change.
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The incident shocked a local community - illicit hate graffiti had defaced a high school wall. A young man, let's call him John, who painted the swastika was apprehended. The crime warranted prosecution in court, but if so, its record would have shadowed John for the rest of his life. Town officials chose a different path, one of restorative justice. It was comprised of community service, letters of apology, counseling, and other means for John to fully understand the hurt he inflicted. He would also experience a visit to the New England Holocaust Memorial guided by a member of the town's Human Rights Commission, someone whose family was decimated by the Holocaust. Restorative justice is a process to create light out of darkness, helping an individual become a better person, one who would make better decisions and stand up to hate. It foregoes a prosecutorial path and criminal record.
Months later when the program came to a close, John was a changed man. At the outset he was a reckless, frightened boy. He emerged an educated, responsible man empowered to confront and oppose hate. John's guided engagement with the Memorial played an outsized role in his transformation. Wouldn't it be a major accomplishment if all visitors could experience the full impact of the message the Memorial is designed to convey? Now with backing from Facing History and Ourselves, Boston's Combined Jewish Philanthropies and Jewish Community Relations Council, twenty-five years after the Memorial's dedication it can.
New digital technology enables anyone to learn from the Memorial without a personal docent. A tour is accessible either at the site via QR code and smartphone, or virtually anywhere in the world from the NEHM web site. Embedded in the tour is factual history, both narrated and textual, complemented by survivor stories & videos frozen in time so the accounts will never be lost.
The tour ends with a call to action for visitors to forcefully counter bigotry and hatred, and with an aspiration that all visitors, even those previously inclined to whiz by on their way to the T-station will now pause, stay longer, think deeply and carry those messages back to their own circles. If successful, our world will be a better place.
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Addendum: If you take the tour, pause at Stop 5. An important piece of Holocaust history is revealed, one that is very personal to our family legacy. My photographs also appear throughout the tour and on the Memorial's new web site.
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blog images ©David Greenfield
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