In the United States opened a unique memorial to the victims of the Holocaust

A special event was held in Philadelphia - the opening of the Holocaust Memorial, which is located at the intersection of 16th and The Parkway.

Photo: YouTube video / CBS Philly frame

"Six Columns"

On the square there are “Six columns”, where oppose the atrocities of the Holocaust with the American Constitution and values. The idea is to remind visitors that if America is faithful to the Constitution, genocide such as the Holocaust will not happen here, said Esther Kutas, acting director of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation in Philadelphia.

For example, one column is devoted to human equality and contains a quote from the Declaration of Independence, while the opposite column describes the idea of ​​the Nazis about the dominant race.

The six columns feature quotes from individuals such as George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower and Leon Bass.

Black Witness Concentration Camp

Leon Bass was a teacher from Philadelphia. He is noted as an African-American soldier in World War II who witnessed the Buchenwald concentration camp.

He was among the first American soldiers who saw the survivors from the camp. Bass later mentioned the people he saw that day as "dead."

“Some of them just wanted to touch you, to be close to you,” Bass recalled of the survivors in a 1985 Associated Press interview. “They stood and looked at you with these haggard, deep eyes.”

From that day, for decades, he spoke of the atrocities he saw.

Railroad to Treblinka

Part of the original railway tracks that led to the camp of the destruction of Treblinka in Nazi-occupied Poland was built into the paving area.

“It should remind visitors of the millions of deportations that took place,” Kutas said.

The Nazis built six main death camps, all in occupied Poland: Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka. The Nazis killed about 700 000 and 900 000 Jews in the gas chambers of Treblinka during the war.

The camp is perhaps the most dramatic example of the "final solution" of the Nazi plot to rid Europe of Jews. It was designed for the sole purpose of exterminating the Jews, unlike other sites that had at least the façade of a prison or labor camp. Treblinka victims were transported there in cattle trucks and placed in the gas chamber almost immediately upon arrival.

Only a few dozen prisoners managed to escape Treblinka.

Theresienstadt tree seedling

“Children imprisoned in the Theresienstadt camp received a seedling from a teacher in the camp and planted it, knowing that they could not see it when it grew,” Kutas said. Those children were later deported to Auschwitz and killed, she said, but the tree continued to thrive in the concentration camp in what was then German-occupied Czechoslovakia.

A sapling from the tree was planted two weeks ago in the square to represent life and hope for the future, as "a reminder of how we should raise our children," Kutas said.

She added that seedlings from the Theresienstadt tree have been planted all over the world - in Israel, Germany, San Francisco and Chicago.

Interactive education

The Holocaust Memorial Foundation in Philadelphia, in partnership with the USC Shoah Foundation, created an application specifically for the square that will allow visitors to use their mobile devices to connect to Holocaust survivor videos and witnesses.

The videos are taken from the Visual History of the USC Shoah Foundation, which contains more 54 000 eyewitness stories about the Holocaust, as well as photographs, documents, maps and other educational materials.

The application is activated when the visitor moves around the area and provides a context and explanation of the elements of the site. Each user can adapt the application according to age.

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