The ''Holocaust Memorial'' at California Palace of the Legion of Honor is a

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

memorial in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, in Lincoln Park, overlooking the

Golden Gate The Golden Gate is a strait on the west coast of North America that connects San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. It is defined by the headlands of the San Francisco Peninsula and the Marin Peninsula, and, since 1937, has been spanned by t ...

. It was created by artist George Segal out of white painted bronze. In 1981 the city invited Segal to submit a design for its competition; his plaster maquette is held by the Jewish Museum in New York. The bronze cast was installed in 1984.

Symbolism

Several of the bodies in the sculpture were designed to be symbolic. One of the bodies resembles

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

, another is of a woman holding an apple, evoking

Eve Eve (; ; ar, حَوَّاء, Ḥawwāʾ; el, Εὕα, Heúa; la, Eva, Heva; Syriac: romanized: ) is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the origin story, "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the ...

. Both symbolize the connection between

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

and

Christians Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words '' Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ ...

. The only standing man, a survivor, is thought to be the sculptor's representation of

Margaret Bourke-White Margaret Bourke-White (; June 14, 1904 – August 27, 1971), an American photographer and documentary photographer, became arguably best known as the first foreign photographer permitted to take pictures of Soviet industry under the Soviets' ...

's famous '' Life Magazine'
1945 photograph
of the liberation of

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or sus ...

. Segal's friends posed for the casts, so they are not emaciated like the corpses found at the liberation of Buchenwald. This was an intentional choice by Segal, as was the star formation of the corpses.

Vandalism

The memorial has been vandalized several times. The most common types of vandalism of the memorial are both the graffitiing of swastikas and the splashing of red paint. Segal perceives the vandalism as a reminder of the continued existence of

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

References

External links

* {{Coord, 37, 47, 04, N, 122, 30, 03, W, format=dms, display=title, type:landmark_region:US-CA Holocaust memorials Outdoor sculptures in San Francisco Monuments and memorials in California Statues in San Francisco Bronze sculptures in California 1984 sculptures 1984 establishments in California Sculpture gardens, trails and parks in California Sculptures of men in California Sculptures of women in California Vandalized works of art in California