Rio Mayor Lays Cornerstone For Holocaust Memorial
Image by Wikipedia
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — The mayor of Rio de Janeiro laid the cornerstone of a long-awaited Holocaust memorial in Brazil’s second-largest city.
“The greatest homage we can render to the six million victims of the Nazis is to shout to the world: Holocaust, never again!” said Rio Mayor Marcelo Crivella during Friday’s ceremony, quoting Rio’s state assembly member Gerson Bergher, creator of the project, who died last May.
The memorial will feature a 72-foot-tall tower divided into ten parts alluding to the biblical commandments, including the phrase “Thou shalt not kill” at its base. The memorial, which is being built with private funding, is located at the Yitzhak Rabin park, inaugurated by the widow of Israel’s murdered prime minister, Leah Rabin, in 1996.
“Even 70 years after humanity experienced this terrible tragedy, we still see all sorts of persecution, discrimination and injustice in our world. With the Holocaust memorial, Rio de Janeiro joins other major cities on the planet, in revering the victims of this genocide,” added the mayor, who is a fervent evangelical and openly pro-Israel.
The landmark, which also will feature a 130-seat auditorium and a digital media area, will honor all ethnic, religious and sexual minorities persecuted by the Nazi regime. A rail car used to transport prisoners to the concentration camps is expected to be brought from Poland as well as victims’ clothes and shoes from the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, according to the organizers.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
