Philadelphia to expand Holocaust memorial

Holocaust Remembrance Foundation gets $1.5 million grant from state to add eternal flame, sapling from Theresienstadt

By JTA 13 May 2016, 4:44 pm

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The Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia (CC BY-SA Spikebrennan, Wikimedia Commons)

The city of Philadelphia revealed plans for the expansion of a Holocaust memorial.

The plan includes an addition to “The Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs,” a statue placed at a Philadelphia intersection in 1964, according to the Philly Voice. The design calls for six pillars to be placed next to the statue to represent the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The pillars will display historical information about the Holocaust and Jewish life under Nazi Germany.

The monument will also include an eternal flame, as well as a wall with a depiction of railroad tracks leading to a concentration camp. It will also feature a sapling grown from a tree planted at the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

The Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation has received a $1.5 million grant from a state of Pennsylvania program for the expansion.

“It’s so important that this beautiful memorial gets enhanced,” said Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, according to the Voice. “I’m fearful for our country. Some of the things I’ve heard in alleged diplomatic speeches I haven’t heard since the 1930s.”