Located in Marion Square in downtown Charleston South Carolina, is this very moving memorial to the Jewish experience during the Holocaust.
The Plaque for the monument reads as follows:
From 1939 until 1945, the National Socialist (Nazi) regime in Germany implemented a racial theory declaring the “German Aryan Race” superior. The Nazis used this perverse Theory and their military and industrial might to dominate Europe and to separate, imprison and ultimately destroy millions of human beings. Those who the Nazis deemed undesirable and sought to eliminate included political dissidents, homosexuals, the mentally and physically disabled, Roma (Gypsies) and Jehovah’s witnesses. But their chief victims were six million Jews
What began as racial laws to strip Jews of their livelihood, their property and their civil rights accelerated into a campaign to systematically slaughter millions of men, women and children. By 1942, the machinery of mass murder was in full operation. Jews and other victims from all over Europe were sent to some 9000 concentration and labor camps throughout Europe, and to the killing centers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sobibor, Majdanek, Treblinka, Belzec and Chelmno located in Poland.
The denial of Human Rights with advanced technology and
A pitiless will to dominate, caused the death of innocent
millions and the annihilation of most of the Jews of Europe.
On that day, one who has escaped will come to you to let you hear it with your own ears.” Ezekiel
As survivors of the tragic events in Europe from 1933 to 1945, the following residents of South Carolina have been living testimonies in our midst.
A listing of the residents follows the above statement.
Taken from the following web site:
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visit link)
Three main design components define the memorial. The North side is a rectangular, sunken lawn framed by graded steps, a place of contemplation and a meeting ground for the annual Yom Ha Shoah (National Days of Remembrance) ceremonies. The West side facing Calhoun Street features a concrete and bronze inscription wall, that details the history of the Holocaust and lists names of survivors living in South Carolina. The center or heart of the memorial is a space defined by an impressive four sided iron screen measuring 25 feet wide, 60 feet long, and 17 feet high. The screen is intended to create a space that is sacred as well as “to signify the place apart occupied by those who perished”. Within the screen rests a 12 foot bronzed tallit, a Jewish prayer shawl.