UNDERSTANDING THE MONUMENT
We suggest you begin by the steps at the entrance to the synagogue. Here you will find a Menorah - a seven-branched candlestand - one of Judaism’s most ancient symbols. Above the monument is a verse from Isaiah 56:5:
I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.
To the left is a bronze bowl filled with small stones. When mourners visit the monument, they take a stone and place it below the names of their deceased relatives. This is a tradition which is practised in Jewish cemeteries around the world. The plaque to the left begins with the words “Forget us not” and explains why the monument was created. The memorial is 42 metres long and runs the length of the alley which is named after Aaron Isaac, the first Jewish immigrant allowed to practise his religion in Sweden. At the base of the monument, you’ll find the names of the largest concentration camps. A number of them, such as Belzec, Chelmno and Treblinka, were solely extermination camps, while others such as Auschwitz and Neugamme were both work and extermination camps. The extermination camps were equipped with gas chambers and crematoria.
HOW THE NAMES ARE ORGANIZED
The names of the victims are grouped together above the name of the survivor who supplied the details. The survivors’ names appear in alphabetical order and are written in italics. For example, the names of Weiner Eugenie, Feldmann Isidor and Feldmann Therese are grouped together above Adler Franzi, who submitted the information.
Plaques 55 and 56 contain the 306 names of those who died in 1945 while being transported to Sweden, or shortly after their arrival: a clear indication of their poor state of health at the time of their liberation. Plaques 49 and 54 contain names supplied after the inauguration of the monument. Place names and dates have been omitted here to allow space for the names of all individuals.
THE HOLOCAUST
This monument was built as a reminder of the worst tragedy in the history
of the Jewish people. Because of their birth, six million Jews were murdered
by the German Nazis and their accomplices in countries across Europe. The
persecution occurred over a period of 12 years, between 1933 and 1945.
A minority of Europe’s Jews survived the extermination, which today is called the Holocaust, or Shoah in Hebrew. Ten thousand came to Sweden through different initiatives arranged by the Red Cross. In 1994, a small group of Holocaust survivors initiated the creation of a memorial to their murdered families.
COLLECTING THE NAMES
It took four years before all the names were collected and the monument was finished. Unlike similar monuments, this memorial lists not only the names of the victims, but also the year and place of birth, and the year and place of death. Jews from the whole of Nazi-occupied Europe, young and old, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Volga River, from Norway to Greece, were murdered in death camps or by the mobile SS death squads, the Einsatzgruppen.
An appeal was sent out to survivors living in Sweden in which they were asked to submit the names of their relatives killed in the war. It met with a strong response, but awoke repressed memories. The survivors, now advanced in years, were subjected to a painful process: to recall the names of mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins; and to remember their terrible fate. Look carefully and you will see that in many cases the lives of several family members were taken at the same time.
A majority of the survivors expressed the wish for the monument to be placed on Jewish ground, close to a synagogue.
We hope that this monument will serve, in all its documented detail, as
a reminder of the consequences of ethnic hatred taken to its horrendous
extreme.
The monument was designed by the architect Gabriel Herdevall and artist
Sivert Lindblom.
The monument is to be found at Wahrendorffsgatan 3, Stockholm.
