Our History
The founding story of the Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach
In 1984, a small group of Holocaust survivors joined together with the idea of developing a permanent memorial in Miami to the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. They had decided that Miami Beach was the perfect location, as South Florida had one of the highest populations of Holocaust survivors in the United States (estimates numbered 20-25,000 in the region), with many of them residing within the city limits.
A year later, in 1985, the Holocaust Memorial Committee was formally established as a private non-profit organization.
The proposed location for The Holocaust Memorial spanned several city blocks with a physical address of 1933-1945 Meridian Avenue, street numbers that exactly match the years of the Nazi regime. The coincidence led many to believe the location of The Holocaust Memorial was bashert (fate) and also helped convince several city legislators that The Holocaust Memorial belonged in that specific spot.
Voices against the holocaust memorial
As preparations were being made to build The Holocaust Memorial, some objected to its erection. Several people argued that Miami Beach was a vacation destination that should only be about “sun and fun”. For example, one of the Miami Beach Garden Club members explained, “Gloom is doom! Don’t turn one of this city’s few bright spots into a cemetery.” In the mid-80s, the Garden Club had plans to expand their center, which were quashed by the Holocaust Memorial’s proposed footprint.
Others said the Holocaust Memorial’s presence on city-owned land violated the separation of Church and State, arguing it was a religious monument. While the Holocaust Memorial is in memory of the six million Jews who died during the Holocaust, it is also a historical monument, and all religious symbols were removed from the planned development.
On November 27, 1984, approximately 500 people packed a meeting of the Miami Beach Planning Board. Dozens of Holocaust survivors from across South Florida were bused in for the meeting, many making emotional pleas to the Board and hoping to sway votes. The Planning Board unanimously approved the Holocaust Memorial; eight days later, the City Commission also approved the plans.
Designing the holocaust memorial
Treister added various colors to the sculptures, giving them each a unique patina. By using shades of blue, green, brown, gold and orange, every figure is different, every face distinctive. Mexico City, 1989.
The Holocaust Memorial Committee then turned to architect Kenneth Treister with the immense challenge of designing the Holocaust Memorial.
“I was commissioned in 1985 to design and sculpt a memorial to the memory of the Jewish culture and individuals destroyed by the Holocaust; to create a memorial garden that would give survivors and those who lost loved ones a place to visit in lieu of the cemetery they do not have; and to express, in photographs and sculpture, the history and sorrow of the Holocaust so future generations will never forget.
No one can comprehend the number of six million or the fact that each of the six million was a person, with family, friends, and a full life ... each enduring the most excruciating agony every second, minute, hour, and day of the Holocaust. The immensity of this tragedy is infinite. To express it artistically, impossible ... but I had to try.” - Treister
Treister’s initial sketches depicted an outstretched arm, reaching for the skies, as hundreds of small human figures clung to it and each other. Early drawings show emaciated people reaching out for help, a naked woman holding onto her baby and a small child, huddled and crying under a blanket.
“I created the memorial as a large environmental sculpture ... a series of outdoor spaces in which the visitor is led through a procession of visual, historical, and emotional experiences with the hope that the totality of the visit will express, in some small way, the reality of the Holocaust. Never shall we forget.
The totality of the Holocaust cannot be created in stone and bronze ... but I had to try. The rich diversity of the European culture, now lost, cannot be expressed ... but I had to try. The murder of one and a half million children, whose joy turned to sorrow suddenly on September 1, 1939, when World War II broke out, cannot be sculpted ... but I had to try. Six million moments of death cannot be understood ... but we must all try.” - Treister
Critics of Treister’s design said the Holocaust Memorial’s focal point, the more than four-story-high outstretched arm, tattooed with a number from Auschwitz, was “grotesque” and a “brutal intrusion on the cityscape.” Holocaust survivors and committee members responded that this was exactly the point of the sculpture.
The entire arm was built in five giant, interlocking slices. This assemblage, when cast and finished, was loaded onto a caravan of trucks for a long pilgrimage to its permanent home in Miami Beach. Mexico City, 1988.
“To one who would say it is not acceptable, not tasteful, not expressive, I would ask, what would he find acceptable? Would he find it acceptable for me to stand on a street corner and weep?” founding committee member and Holocaust survivor David Schaecter poignantly queried.
Treister’s design was eventually approved, and he set off to have the bronze sculpture cast in Mexico City foundry Fundiciòn Artística between 1987 and 1989.
“I have been a sculptor all of my creative life, but this was my greatest challenge. The work took five years and included research in Jerusalem and work in Taiwan and Mexico City, where my sculptures were cast. The foundry could have been a scene out of the Holocaust … a dark, huge, cavernous space, clouded in dust, the incessant hammering of the forged metal, body parts of wax floating in a pool of water, discarded plaster bodies lying in a large corner pile and the smoke billowing from the brick furnaces that lined the concrete floor.” - Treister
Giant blocks of pink-hued Jerusalem stone were brought in from Israel and set as the Holocaust Memorial’s foundation and watched diligently by the late Resnick, who, his family said, would guard the Holocaust Memorial overnight, afraid thieves would steal the pricey materials not yet secured to the ground.
A dream is dedicated
Treister said the arm represents his portrayal of a scene from hell, frozen in bronze. A giant outstretched arm, marked with a Nazi prisoner’s tattoo, rises from the earth; the final reaching out of a dying person. The hand, almost in place. Miami Beach, 1989.
The Holocaust Memorial took more than four years to build, and on Sunday, February 4, 1990, a dedication ceremony was held with Elie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate, as the guest speaker. His address spoke to the core of the Holocaust Memorial:
“One day, a man or a woman will enter this sanctuary of remembrance and wonder: Was it all true? Were the killers really that cruel? And the victims that helpless? That lonely? That abandoned?
Will this museum, or any other, bigger or smaller, make a difference? I hope that visitors will bring their children. I hope they will look at the pictures. Pictures: Old, emaciated grandparents lying in the street. Naked mothers shielding their children. A group of SS men enjoying themselves while tormenting an old man, who looks like my grandfather, and everyone else’s.
Look at his face. Look at all the faces. Look and you will realize that there existed a suffering that transcended suffering. Woe unto us, for the tragedy which this museum is trying to integrate is beyond words, and beyond imagination, but not beyond memory. And only those who were there know, will know, what it meant being there.” - Elie Wiesel
The holocaust memorial wall
The Holocaust Memorial includes a Memorial Wall, which serves as a reminder of the human souls whose lives were extinguished in the Holocaust.
“Imagine you’re in a concentration camp in Poland surrounded by the Nazis, no communication with the outside world, and you’re suffering and you’re a martyr, you’re giving up your life. Each one probably died thinking that no one would ever care, no one would ever know, no one would ever remember.” - Treister
Today, the Holocaust Memorial Wall includes thousands of names, with more being added on the request of family members and survivors.