Holocaust memorial being unveiled at Statehouse speaks for those who survived and the millions who perished Bearing witness

WSee hen Nazi soldiers snatched 13-year-old Moniek Ebner off the street in his hometown of Nowy Wisnicz, Poland, he didn’t know he would never see anyone in his family alive again. His parents, grandfathers, three brothers, seven uncles, six aunts and many cousins were Holocaust victims.

“I survived because God wanted me to bear witness to one of the darkest days of mankind,” Ebner said.

Ebner, 85, and others from a shrinking group of 243 central Ohio Holocaust survivors — along with a handful of Ohio

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veterans who helped liberate death camps — are to bear witness to the dedication of the $2 million Holocaust and Liberators Memorial at noon Monday at the Statehouse. The ceremony will be held in the Ohio Theatre across the street from the memorial, which was created by Polish-born artist-architect Daniel Libeskind.

The memorial honors not only Jewish and other Holocaust victims and survivors, but also Ohio’s World War II soldiers who fought German defenders to liberate death camps.

Gov. John Kasich did not go to the May 4, 2011, Holocaust observance at the Statehouse with plans for a memorial, but after listening to survivors’ stories, he spontaneously announced his idea.

“When people stand silent before evil and forget that we are all made in the image of God, that’s when things like the Holocaust happen,” Kasich said in an interview last week. “I get very emotional about this. This is a message that people need to think about.”

Kasich has visited the memorial site almost daily, sometimes with staff members and visitors in tow, since construction began in March.

“I believe this will become a focal point for visitors not only in central Ohio, but in the U.S.,” he said.

Libeskind, an internationally known architect and designer, was chosen by the Capital Square Review and Advisory Board after a design competition. His design came to life using 4 tons of steel, 3.5 tons of bronze, 11 tons of limestone and 13.7 tons of Carnela granite. The limestone came from the same South Side quarry used for the 1996 renovation of the Statehouse. The general contractor on the project was Turner Construction of Columbus. Zahner Co., of Kansas City, Mo., did the metal work, and Cleveland Marble & Mosaic Co. did the stonework.

The memorial prominently features a shattered Star of David symbolizing 6 million Jewish victims, but the inscription also recognizes “millions more, including prisoners of war, racial and ethnic minorities, freemasons, homosexuals, the mentally ill, the developmentally disabled and political dissidents who suffered under Nazi Germany.”

Words inspired by the Talmud, the Jewish book of wisdom, also are inscribed: “If you save one life, it is as if you saved the world.”

There were objections— specifically from former state Sen. Richard Finan— about placing what some consider a religious symbol on the 1860sera Statehouse grounds. But Kasich persuaded the Capitol Square Board to approve it, and in the process, Finan resigned from the panel.

Joyce Garver Keller, executive director of Ohio Jewish Communities, felt a sense of urgency as she lobbied for the memorial.

“The number of survivors and their liberators are dwindling,” she said. “We want them to experience the dedication of the memorial so their story can be heard.”

The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany says there are about 120,000 living Holocaust survivors in the U.S. and 500,000 worldwide.

Renate Frydman, the daughter of survivors, helped create a Holocaust exhibit at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton and an education center at Wright State University. She said survivors are classified as someone who either escaped the Nazi oppression or was left behind and survived between 1933 and 1945.

A memorial is fine, but Holocaust education is equally important, Frydman said.

“We’re surrounded with monuments and statues, but if you don’t know the bigger story behind them, you don’t feel anything. ... Why put a memorial up unless you want people to feel something?”