A Description of the Memorial
There are 6 main components to the Memorial﹣the Outer Curb, the Entrance Gate, the Inner Curb, The Path, The Columns, and The Life Stone (RI Holocaust Memorial App). The Outer Curb, made of light gray granite, lines the memorial. On it are the names of 15 concentration camps, chosen because they are the most recognizable, and “therefore representational of them all” (RI Holocaust Memorial App, Outer Curb).
Flanking the Memorial is the Entrance Gate. The Gate consists of two semi-rectangular granite pillars, the same dark grey as the Columns. The pillars differ in size. Both pillars contain detailed inscriptions that face either side of the visitor, beckoning for them to engage. On the smaller pillar is a menorah. Its right side reads the following quote from Roman Kent, a Holocaust survivor, “We do not want our past to be our children’s future.” Across from it lies the larger pillar, the front of which reads “Rhode Island Holocaust Memorial.” Its left side provides the context of both the Memorial and the Holocaust﹣ “Singled out for extermination as a part of a ‘final solution’ by the Nazi regime, more than six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. May all of them﹣victims, witnesses, and survivors alike﹣testify to the memory of brutality in the extreme, of the will to survive it, and the determination among all of us to avoid committing such atrocities in the future.” Below this statement read the dates of the Holocaust﹣ “January 30, 1933, through May 8, 1945.”
As you make your way to the Life Stone, you walk upon a Path of spotted gray stone overlaid with a design of washed-out, red train tracks. Why train tracks? Because “A significant percentage of those who perished were transported to the death camps by train and so train tracks have become a symbol of the monumental destruction of life during the Holocaust” (RI Holocaust Memorial App, The Path). As the Path continues, the tracks narrow, representing “the loss of two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population” (RI Holocaust Memorial App, The Path).
Lining the Path is the Inner Curb. The Curb is lined with names of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Rhode Island following their liberation (RI Holocaust Memorial App, Inner Curb). Around 200 survivors settled in Rhode Island, and they soon became a vibrant part of RI’s Jewish community (RI Holocaust Memorial App, Inner Curb).
As you reach the Life Stone, the six Memorial Columns come into focus. The Columns are made of smooth, dark grey granite. The Columns, which differ in size, are “truncated elliptical cones” rife with symbolism (RI Holocaust Memorial, The Columns). The shape represents “the smoke stacks that carried the ashes of those killed in the camps to heaven” (RI Holocaust Memorial, The Columns). The six pillars depict the six million Jews that died, while the varied heights symbolize “the range and scope of the victims” (RI Holocaust Memorial, The Columns).
The Path ends at the Life Stone﹣ a large white stone that stands in stark opposition to the dark pillars surrounding it. The Stone represents a Stone of Remembrance. In Judaism, one leaves a Stone of Remembrance at the grave of someone they love to “commemorate the visit and symbolize the permanence of memory” (RI Holocaust Memorial, Life Stone).