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Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza
The Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza, located at 16th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, is dedicated to both honoring the memory of the millions of Jews who were killed during the Holocaust and educating the public about the atrocities.
The Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation led the redevelopment and redesign efforts to reactivate the site where the nation’s first public Holocaust monument, Nathan Rapoport’s sculpture Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs, has sat since 1964.
The expanded memorial officially opened to the public in October 2018.
Since 1964, the bronze sculpture Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs by Jewish sculptor and painter Nathan Rapoport has been located at the tip of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The moving piece of public art was a gift from the Association of Jewish New Americans to the City of Philadelphia.
The sculpture became part of the larger Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza, which consists of five more elements, when the redesigned site opened around it on October 22, 2018.
The plaza’s several interpretive and interactive features mesh cohesively to create an enlightening and reflective experience for visitors at a site well-designed for education and remembrance.
The Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation partnered with the USC Shoah Foundation to develop an interactive app (available on iTunes App Store and Google Play) for visitors to use while walking through the site. The app incorporates video testimonials from Holocaust survivors and guided tours for certain age groups to enhance the visiting experience.
— Photo by C. Smyth for Visit Philadelphia
In addition to Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs, there are five more elements that make up the memorial.
Six rectangular pillars, in memory of the six million Jews killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, sit on one side of the plaza. Presented in pairs, the engraved pillars contrast the atrocities committed against Jewish people during the Holocaust with American constitutional rights and values to show that this horrific event can never be repeated in the United States.
Beside the six pillars, a looped video recording of a burning flame represents hope, light and the commitment to never forget the Holocaust.
Opposite the six pillars, a sapling from a tree nurtured by imprisoned children at the Theresienstadt concentration camp symbolizes life and hope for future generations.
A tree grove sits at the far end of the plaza to represent the woods that sheltered those who were brave enough to resist and fight the bigotry of the Nazi regime.
Nearby the grove, original train tracks from the railroad adjacent to the Treblinka extermination camp are embedded in the pavement in memory of the millions who were killed there.
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