Holocaust Memorial on Miami Beach
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The Holocaust Memorial on Miami Beach is a Holocaust memorial in Miami Beach, Florida. It was conceived by a committee of Holocaust survivors in 1984, formally established in 1985 as the Holocaust Memorial Committee, a non-profit organization. It was designed by Kenneth Treister on a site designated by the City of Miami Beach Commission at Meridian Avenue and Dade Boulevard. The Memorial was opened on Sunday, February 4, 1990, with Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel as guest speaker at the dedication ceremonies.
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[edit] Design
The Memorial begins with a curved walkway with a reflecting pool on the left and a black granite wall on the right. The wall depicts a short history of the Holocaust. This walkway leads to a passage of diminishing height, furnished with an eternal light and bearing the names of World War II concentration camps. The passage leads to a circular, walled plaza. The centerpiece of the plaza is a 42-foot bronze arm that appears to be reaching up out of the ground. It is inscribed, as if tattooed, with a serial number like those applied by the Nazis to concentration camp prisoners. There are also about a hundred life-sized bronze figures of people, some seeming to climb the arm, some scattered about the plaza. Upon returning through the passageway, a second curved walkway and black granite wall, continuing the arc of the first, is inscribed with the names of Holocaust victims, much like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
[edit] Daniel Pearl Controversy
On April 16, 2007, slain journalist Daniel Pearl was added to the Holocaust Memorial as the first non-Holocaust victim. His father, Judea Pearl, gave the reasoning for the induction as a gesture of the "forces of evil and barbarity still in the world." [1] Journalist Bradley Burston in Haaretz said that the addition of a non-victim to the memorial was essentially Holocaust denial, and was the use of the Holocaust as a political tool against Islamism. [2]
[edit] Holocaust Memorial Committee Founding Members
- Norman Braman (Chairman)
- Kenneth Treister, (FAIA sculptor)
- Dr. Helen N. Fagin (Historian)
- Jack Chester
- George Goldbloom
- Ezra Katz
- Commissioner Abe Resnick
- David Schaecter
- Rabbi Solomon Schiff
- Harry B. Smith, Esq.
