Philadelphia’s Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs

Jaden Cloobeck, C’22

Many will be surprised to learn that America’s first Holocaust monument was not in New York City; it was in Philadelphia. In this historical analysis, I will share the story of how Philadelphia’s Monument to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs was planned, designed, and commemorated as a Jewish gathering place of healing and remembrance. From 1961 to 1964, a Monument Committee hosted an annual Yizkor ceremony (memorial service for the deceased) to commemorate the Holocaust and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, while planning and fundraising for a permanent monument. The Committee’s tireless efforts resulted in a public art piece by a world-renowned sculptor, Nathan Rapoport. I will give an overview of Rapoport’s life, and his vision for this art piece. I will share stories of the monument’s legacy, especially in regard to Holocaust education in schools. In this analysis, I will also explore larger questions: How does a monument get made? How does the meaning of a memory site evolve over time? As Philadelphia’s Holocaust monument has belatedly received city-wide recognition, it offers a material lesson in the resilience of a persecuted community [1].

Figure 1. The Monument’s alignment with the Israeli flag on Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Photo by author, November 5, 2021.

Dedication 

At noon on April 26, 1964, a process several years in the making came to fruition. Between 16th and Arch Streets on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the first public Holocaust Memorial in the United States was unveiled. The date was deliberately chosen to mark the 21st anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising—the largest Jewish resistance against Nazis during World War II—and Holocaust Remembrance Day (known in Hebrew as Yom HaShoah) [2]. The Yizkor ceremony began with a playing of the “Star-Spangled Banner.” As Holocaust survivors’ hearts sunk with sorrow, they sang “The Partisan Hymn” in Yiddish to commemorate the people they lost. The song describes people having hope of winning the battle and coming back [3]. 

For the monument’s dedication, 45-year-old Holocaust survivor Abram Shnaper (pronounced “Sh-naw-per”), Monument Committee President and leader of the Association of Jewish New Americans (AJNA), took the podium [4]. Shnaper, who made his living as a book binder, was a dedicated historical archivist [5]. After he narrowly escaped from a concentration camp in 1944, he wrote down everything that he experienced [6]. In his remarks, Shnaper told the crowd of 3,500 spectators, “Today we are witnesses to the unveiling of the Monument for the six million martyrs; from this day forward, tens of thousands of people will pass this site” [7, 8]. He described how every Jew killed in the Holocaust “resisted his executioner”: “With prayers on their lips and in their hearts” [9]. He emphasized Jewish resistance during the Holocaust, citing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as a “symbol of heroism” that “served as a beacon for our people, and in the same spirit the heroic Israeli army won the war of independence” [10]. He declared that it is “no coincidence” that Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, where American independence was declared, would be the home to a memory site that rejects human cruelty [11]. 

Philadelphia’s Jewish New Americans 

The story of Nathan Rapoport’s Monument to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs is a story of Jewish remembrance. Many involved in the monument’s creation were Holocaust survivors themselves. Yet, it is important to recognize that there were already Jewish gatherings to process and remember the atrocities of WWII before the monument was even conceived. Holocaust survivors began arriving in Philadelphia in the late 1940s and early 1950s. One hundred fifty families convened to create the Association of Jewish New Americans (AJNA) in 1953 (the term “Holocaust survivor” was not widely used at that time). By 1964, Congress Bi-Weekly reported that AJNA was made up of around 450 members, largely Polish Jews, yet many were from Romania, Germany, and Czechoslovakia [12]. The original purpose of AJNA was to make social connections and to host Yiddish cultural events [13]. Many survivors did not want to talk about the Holocaust, yet there were some who wanted to memorialize lost friends and family members. Starting in 1953, AJNA held a Yiddish service that gave people the opportunity to share speeches and poetry to make sense of the suffering they endured during WWII [14]. By the early-1960s, the idea of a physical memorial to the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust gained momentum. Shnaper later indicated that an anti-Semitic incident in Philadelphia energized the fundraising [15]. 

The committee that made Jewish-American history, 1961–64

On February 27, 1961, two letters were sent (one in English and a copy in Hebrew) from AJNA affiliate Max Rudoler to Joseph Barr, a leader of the Jewish War Veterans (JWV). For context, Rudoler described the JWV as a “powerful and far-reaching organization” [16]. Rudoler wrote that AJNA was a small non-political organization made up of concentration camp survivors and war veterans. Rudoler explained that AJNA desired a memorial for the Warsaw Ghetto Fighters and the six million Jews that perished during the war. Rudoler appealed to Barr that this memorial would be “the only one of its kind in the U.S.,” which illustrates that AJNA understood the selling point of being the first group to commemorate the Holocaust in North America. 

The year 1962 was busy with monument planning. On July 5, a meeting took place with Gratz College dean Elazar Goelman to discuss the publicity campaign and public relations for the dedication of a statue by Nathan Rapoport. The statue was planned to be erected in front of a new Gratz College building in May 1963 [17]. Nathan Rapoport was commissioned to sculpt the monument, likely because of his renowned 1948 Social Realist Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw in honor of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising [18]. On October 30, 1962, lawyer Louis E. Seltzer sent a letter to Shnaper, stating that the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) decided on the name of the committee that would advocate for the monument: the Committee for a Monument in Memory of the Six Million Jewish Martyrs (hereafter referred to as the “Monument Committee” or “Committee”) [19]. Seltzer was an invaluable legal advisor who helped incorporate the Committee so they could solicit funds under tax-exempt status. 

On December 17, 1962, Seltzer, likely sensing impatience from the Committee, sent a letter to Monument Committee Vice President Edward Gastfriend to implore him to reconsider incorporating the Committee. Seltzer predicted that they were aiming to raise $80,000 (approximately $736,000 in 2021 dollars) and they only needed $400 to incorporate (approximately $3,700 in 2021 dollars). Seltzer admitted that it was unclear under Pennsylvania law whether a non-profit entity could raise funds to compensate a sculptor. Seltzer advocated for incorporation to give everyone immunity from personal liability on contracts, meaning the Committee members would be legally protected. Shortly thereafter, on December 28, 1962, Seltzer sent a letter to Committee Treasurer Olga Potok to have members sign the articles of incorporation so it could be sent to Harrisburg for review [20]. Additionally, Seltzer wrote a letter addressed to Nathan Rapoport, who was living in New York City at the time, with a proposed contract for the artistic commission. 

In terms of how much money was raised for the monument, there were different figures across different newspapers and websites. The most common number from primary sources was that $60,000 was fundraised [21]. According to a letter dated December 17, 1962 from Mr. Seltzer to Mr. Gastfriend, some of the funds could have been invested to fund an endowed chair in Gratz College’s contemporary Jewish history program [22]. The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia (hereafter called “the Federation”) was an indispensable fundraising partner for the monument [23]. The Federation was made up of wealthy Jewish American businessmen from German descent who collaborated with the Monument Committee and AJNA, which had limited financial means [24]. 

In 1963, the Committee incorporated and began work on the monument. The Committee’s Articles of Incorporation to become a 501(c)(3) federally tax-exempt corporation was submitted to the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas on January 31, 1963 [25]. The corporation’s purpose was to “foster a better understanding and appreciation for American principles and democratic institutions” [26]. Strategically, it made sense to lead with American principles to establish common ground with the reader, especially if they were not Jewish. Eventually, they described that the Committee would like to “memorialize the six million Jewish martyrs of Nazi persecution by the erection of a monument to their memory.” Of course, the Committee’s mission was bigger than just erecting a monument. Even if it was not explicitly recognized at this point, the Committee was motivated to foster awareness and education of the Holocaust in Philadelphia so that future generations can remember what they endured [27]. 

At the center of this mission was Abram Shnaper. He thoroughly documented the process, invited Israeli public officials to the dedication ceremony and wrote letters in Yiddish (and sometimes English) to his friend and collaborator Nathan Rapoport [28]. On June 25, 1963, Rapoport sent a letter to Shnaper asking to send a check to him for the monument [29]. From June to October 1963, Shnaper and Rapoport exchanged several letters. On July 11, 1963, Rapoport wrote to Shnaper about problems with enlargement, suggesting there were adjustments to the design during the sculpting process [30]. In August 1963, Rapoport was in Italy at work on the commission [31]. On October 2, 1963, Rapoport sent Shnaper a Western Union telegram: “ready casting plaster waiting for ok shalom rapoport ”[32]. On the back of a message from Rapoport to Shnaper dated March 28, 1964, Rapoport drew an ink drawing of the burning bush that resembled the finished monument [33].

How Nathan Rapoport’s life inspired the monument 

To understand the artistry of a sculpture, one must first understand the life of the artist. Nathan Rapoport (1911–1987) was a Jewish sculptor born in Warsaw, Poland. According to Rapoport, his early sculptures were neither Jewish nor contemporary [34]. Aside from his talent as a sculptor, he was also principled. In his twenties, he refused to have his sculpture The Tennis Player displayed at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, in protest of Hitler’s anti-Semitic Nazi regime. When the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, Rapoport fled Warsaw for the Soviet Union (USSR). Rapoport took refuge, working in a labor camp for five months before being chosen to design busts of Soviet heroes and military generals. While in the USSR, Rapoport heard of the unsuccessful Jewish uprising against the Nazi military forces in his hometown. He felt called to design a monument to tell this story. He became renowned for his 1948 Social Realist sculpture of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which was likely a large reason why he was commissioned for Philadelphia’s Holocaust monument. 

Rapoport’s final rendering for the Philadelphia sculpture was unique because he experimented with expressionistic quasi-figuration, which he abandoned in his later Holocaust works [37]. He sculpted a marble base inscribed with the word “Remember” and the names of concentration camps (see Appendix 4) [38]. The rest of the monument was molded in bronze. It depicted a burning bush, an elderly Jewish man holding a Torah scroll, and the faces of a suffering mother and child (see Appendix 1 & 3) [39]. There was a man with his hands raised in prayer, which signified how people remained faithful in their darkest moment [40]. The mother supporting her baby signified the generation who were denied the opportunity to live and procreate [41]. At the top of the monument, there were hands holding daggers, signifying Jewish resistance (see Appendix 1). Here was the English inscription on the Monument’s base (see Appendix 4): 

The Holocaust
1933–1945
Now and forever enshrined in memory are the six million
Jewish martyrs who perished in concentration camps
ghettos and gas chambers
in their deepest agony they clung to the image of humanity
and their acts of resistance in the forests and ghettos
redeemed the honor of man
the suffering and heroism are forever branded upon our conscience and shall
be remembered
from generation to generation
[42].

Rapoport described that “[his] words are made of stone and bronze; their words are silent but everlasting” [43]. The words inscribed on the Monument were just as significant as the bronze iconography above it. According to the Meeting Minutes of the Monument Committee on March 1, 1966, Yiddish and Hebrew inscriptions were added, which included a quotation from the Book of Maccabees (see Appendix 4) [44]. At a later point, likely in 2018, an additional inscription was erected in front of the original 1964 sculpture to contextualize the monument and the sculptor’s life (see Appendix 2).

The monument’s location, the Yizkor service, and (under)recognition, 1964–92 

As mentioned earlier, the monument was originally going to be placed at Gratz College, yet difficulties arose that prevented this outcome [45]. Instead, in 1964, the Committee gifted the monument to the City of Philadelphia. According to The Jewish Times, the Philadelphia Art Commission took the first step to accepting the gift on January 8, 1964 [46]. Surprisingly, the current location of the monument at 16th and Arch Streets near Benjamin Franklin Parkway was meant to be temporary [47]. It was reported that the monument would be moved to the proposed “Freedom Plaza” of City Hall on 15th and Market Streets [48]. However, this plaza was not built, and the Holocaust monument’s temporary location became its long-term home. Although the centralized location to City Hall could be seen as desirable, it was less so during the urban renewal period of the 1960s. In a September 1964 column for the Evening Bulletin, James Smart remarked that there was active construction of apartment complexes (the Plaza and the Windsor) and work on an underground parking garage [49]. With construction workers using loud power tools nearby, one can imagine that visitors were less likely to visit the monument than if the area was quiet. Smart pointed out that there was “no plaque or marking to identify [the Holocaust Monument]” and critiqued the triangular plot surrounding the monument was a “seedy, weedy dust-bowl” [50]. 

Every year following the 1964 dedication, the Monument to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs became a public gathering space for the Jewish community to remember the Holocaust at the Yizkor service. From an analysis of the event’s advertisements and programs, the list of Jewish Philadelphia organizations that affiliated with the Yizkor ceremony grew from 1965 to 1968, especially youth organizations [51]. By 1968, the total number of affiliates reached 68. Within that total, there was an increase of Jewish youth organizations from 11 to 15, including organizations like the Hillel chapters at the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University. In a letter from Ceremony Chairman Sydney Orlofsky to Abram Shnaper on May 17, 1966, Orlofsky noted that the April 1966 service was the first one that was sponsored by the entire organized Jewish community in Philadelphia [52]. On every advertisement from 1966–68, there is emphasis that “Young People [were] Especially Invited.” The Yizkor service was meant to teach the youngest generation about the atrocities of the Holocaust so that they may pass down the story to future generations, as it mentioned on the monument’s inscription. In his May 1966 letter to Shnaper, Orlofsky envisioned the creation of a committee for year-round educational activities about the Holocaust, utilizing the monument as an educational memory site. 

In 1966, a permanent Memorial Committee for the Six Million was established by the Federation of Jewish Agencies of Greater Philadelphia, AJNA and the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), a fellow leading organizer of the Yizkor service. The Memorial Committee’s mission was to continue the work of the Monument Committee in a new way [53]. This coalition for the Memorial Committee was made up of almost one thousand local Jewish organizations, the first organization to do so outside of Israel [54]. Just as Orlofsky described it to Shnaper in his letter, the Memorial Committee’s mission was to create a year-round educational program to remember the impact of the Holocaust [55]. The Memorial Committee began its work by creating educational brochures that were placed in tourist centers and convention bureaus. For instance, Gratz College, a constituent of the Federation of Jewish Agencies of Greater Philadelphia, printed a brochure on “Teaching the Holocaust—Suggested Guidelines.” The brochure included some approved educational suggestions such as highlighting Jewish resistance and discouraging Anti-Semitic rationalizations of the Holocaust [56]. In 1970, the Memorial Committee collaborated with the Philadelphia Board of Education, the Cardinal’s Commission on Human Relations of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the Episcopal Diocese to form a Coordinating Council on the Holocaust [57]. In 1976, the Philadelphia Board of Education approved the Council’s proposal for secondary schools to teach the Holocaust [58]. 

In 1966, another act of recognition occurred when the Philadelphia City Council unanimously adopted a resolution to temporarily rename “Arch Street” to the “Avenue of the Six Million Jewish Martyrs” at 16th Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway during the weekend of April 15–17, 1966 [59]. This legislative action was made in tribute to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Six Million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. This temporary street name change—later added permanently—was arguably the most city-wide recognition the monument received during the twentieth century (see Appendix 5). Unfortunately, this kind of public recognition beyond the Jewish community would become the exception, not the rule. In 1974, Philadelphia Magazine condemned Rapoport’s monument as the “worst sculpture” in the city, pointing out the work’s “twisted swords, hairless heads, hammertoes and hammerfingers [sic] projecting… It looks like one of those clouds of dust cartoonists use to signify a fistfight” [60]. The Monument to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs would not be listed in a book on Philadelphia public art until 1991, and it was not until the early twenty-first century that the monument reached city-wide public recognition [61]. In James Young’s 1992 book The Texture of Memory, which covers Holocaust memory sites, Rapoport’s Philadelphia monument is barely mentioned, even though Nathan Rapoport received a whole chapter on his life and other works [62]. In other words, Rapoport’s complex, abstract representation of the Holocaust in Philadelphia was misunderstood and under-appreciated for many years.

Protest at the monument: Young Jewish activists and neo-Nazis, 1969 

Despite the monument’s under-appreciation, Philadelphians have used the monument as a platform to express their freedom of speech, which once devolved into hate speech. On April 21, 1969, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that anti-Semitic stickers were pasted around the Holocaust monument before the Yizkor service that was occurring a few days later. The stickers’ message read: “HITLER was RIGHT. 6 MILLION MORE” [63]. In spite of this unacceptable hate speech, 4,000 people still attended a peaceful Yizkor service on April 25, 1969, the largest crowd to attend the service up to that point [64].

Perhaps in response to this hate speech, students staged a protest at the monument a few weeks later. On May 16, 1969, The Jewish Exponent reported that on the evening of May 10, fifty college-age students from local universities chained themselves to Philadelphia’s Holocaust Monument and held a vigil and 24-hour hunger protest. They publicized that the students, members of a Jewish youth organization called the LAPID (Hebrew word for “torch”) Group, were protesting the plight of Russian and Arab Jews as well as the latent yet rising anti-Semitism in the United States [66]. Specifically, LAPID was protesting the Soviet Union as an aggressor against Russian Jews as well as being a supplier of weapons for Arab countries to use against Israel. Imagine an image taken at night of a group of Caucasian Jewish young men sitting with signs that read “Jewish Blood is Cheap” and “Russia and Egypt: If You Don’t Trust Your Jews–Let Them Go.” The LAPID protest illustrates how a monument can be re-interpreted by different generations to serve unique purposes, even just five years after the monument was dedicated.

Legacy of the Monument to the Six Million Jewish Marytrs, 1964–2021 

From 1964–89, Shnaper scrapbooked the Yizkor services that occurred every April. His newspaper clippings support that the services were well-attended, ranging between 1,500-5,000 estimated attendees. By the 1990s, according to a recent manager of the Memorial Committee, the Committee began focusing its efforts solely on the yearly memorial service rather than invest its resources to promote Holocaust education in schools as it did in the 1970s.

However, the Memorial Committee did not restrain their educational ambitions for long. In 2003, the Memorial Committee began a new program called the Dorothy Freedman Conversation with a Survivor that brings together a Holocaust survivor and a related speaker, such as a liberator or a rescuer to teach Hebrew high school students [70]. In 2006, the Holocaust Remembrance Foundation purchased an 80-year lease of the land surrounding the monument from the city for a whopping one dollar per year to build a Holocaust Education Center [71]. In 2014, a project that would put the Holocaust monument in dialogue with other genocides was unfortunately abandoned. In 2016, it was announced that a new memorial plaza would be built to accompany the original 1964 monument. Perhaps the plaza was meant to beautify the area around the monument. The Horwitz-Wasserman Plaza was unveiled in October 2018. In terms of telling the story of the monument in the early twenty-first century, websites to understand outdoor monuments, such as Museum Without Walls, have been created.

Conclusion 

Monuments evolve with the passing of time. Educators and non-profit leaders continue to teach each new generation about the Holocaust in new ways. While monuments are meant to tell the story, we must recognize the leaders who made the monument possible in the first place. We must remember the advocates who pushed for Holocaust education in schools. The stories of the past—especially stories of hardship and indescribable loss—can only be passed down the generations if there are people motivated to share it, especially in public spaces and educational settings.

To close, I would like to why I decided to analyze this monument. As a Jewish-American, I was intrigued when I first came across this monument on a walk on September 11, 2021. I thought it would be meaningful to choose a monument that is related to my cultural background. Although I have no Holocaust survivors in my family that I know of, I am proud to have researched this story to learn more about Jewish history in Philadelphia. I am inspired by how Jews of the mid-to-late twentieth century were proactive in finding ways to heal as a community through commemoration and education efforts. I especially admire Abram Shnaper for his tireless efforts in documenting his story and the story of Holocaust survivors everywhere. Overall, I am grateful to have conducted this historical analysis because I have a greater appreciation for how much the Jewish community in Philadelphia cares about collective memory. By studying this monument’s creation and legacy, I feel more like a Jewish Philadelphian than I ever have before. 

 

Notes

[1] Natasha Goldman, “’Never Bow Your Head, Be Helpful, and Fight for Justice and Righteousness’: Nathan Rapoport and Philadelphia’s Holocaust Memorial (1964).” Journal of Jewish Identities 9, no. 2 (2016): 160.

[2] Philip Rosen, Robert Tabak, and David Gross, “Philadelphia Jewry and the Holocaust,” in Philadelphia Jewish Life, 1940–2000, ed. Murray Friedman (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003), 20.

[3] Museum without Walls, AUDIO—Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs by Artist Nathan Rapoport (Association for Public Art, 2012).

[4] Bonnie L. Cook, “Abram Shnaper; Dedicated to Telling of Holocaust Experience,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 1 May 2014.

[5] Cook, “Abram Shnaper.”

[6] Ibid.

[7] “3,500 Join Dedication of Martyr Monument,” Jewish Exponent, 1964.

[8] Abram Shnaper, “Address at Monument Dedication,” Temple University Special Collections.

[9] Shnaper “Address.”

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] S. L. Shneiderman, “Remembering the Six Million: A Monument in Philadelphia,”
Congress Bi-Weekly, 13 April 1964.

[13] Rosen, Tabak & Gross, “Philadelphia Jewry and the Holocaust,” 20.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Goldman, “Never Bow Your Head,” 173.

[16] Max Rudoler, “Correspondence from Max Rudoler to Joseph Barr,” Temple University Special Collections.

[17] “Meeting with Dr. Elazar Goelman, Dean of Gratz College,” Temple University Special Collections.

[18] Goldman, “Never Bow York Head,” 167.

[19] Correspondence from Louis E. Seltzer to Abram Shnaper, Temple University Special Collections.

[20] Correspondence from Louis E. Seltzer to Olga Potok, Temple University Special Collections.

[21] Rosen, Tabak, & Gross, “Philadelphia Jewry and the Holocaust,” 20.

[22] Correspondence from Louis E. Seltzer to Edward Gastfriend, Temple University Special Collections.

[23] Rosen, Tabak & Gross, “Philadelphia Jewry and the Holocaust,” 20.

[24] Goldman, “Never Bow Your Head,” 172.

[25] Articles of Incorporation (1963).

[26] Ibid.

[27] Goldman, “Never Bow Your Head,” 173.

[28] Jessica Lydon, “From the Philadelphia Jewish Archives: Philadelphia’s Holocaust Memorial.”

[29] Correspondence from Nathan Rapoport to Abram Shnaper, Temple University Special Collections.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Telegram from Nathan Rapoport to Abram Shnaper, Temple University Special Collections.

[33] Correspondence from Nathan Rapoport to Abram Shnaper.

[34] James E. Young, “The Biography of a Memorial Icon: Nathan Rapoport’s Warsaw Ghetto Monument,” In The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 157.

[35] Ibid.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Goldman, ““Never Bow Your Head,” 185.

[38] Rosen, Tabak, & Gross. “Philadelphia Jewry and the Holocaust.”

[39] Ibid.

[40] Museum Without Walls.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Goldman, “Never Bow Your Head,” 163.

[43] Museum Without Walls.

[44] “Committee for the Monument Minutes—Luncheon Meeting,” Temple University Special Collections.

[45] “Monument to 6 Million Jewish Martyrs Enroute Here; Unveiling Set for April 26.” Jewish Times, 3 April 1964.

[46] “Monument to 6 Million Jewish Martyrs Enroute Here.”

[47] Ibid.

[48] Ibid.

[49] James Smart, “In Our Town: Seeing the New Sights in Center City,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 10 September 1964.

[50] Smart, “In Our Town.”

[51] “1967 & 1968 Greater Philadelphia Memorial to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs Advertisements,” Temple University Special Collections.

[52] Sydney Orlofsky, “Correspondence from Sydney Orlofsky to Abram Shnaper,” Temple University Special Collections.

[53] “Memorial Committee Description,” Temple University Special Collections.

[54] Rosen, Tabak, & Gross, “Philadelphia Jewry and the Holocaust,” 55.

[55] “Memorial Committee Description.”

[56] Gratz College, “Teaching the Holocaust—Suggested Guidelines,” Temple University Special Collections.

[57] Rosen, Tabak & Gross, “Philadelphia Jewry and the Holocaust,” 20.

[58] Ibid.

[59] Council of the City of Philadelphia Resolution 194 (24 March 1966).

[60] Goldman, “Never Bow Your Head,” 184.

[61] Ibid., 159-160.

[62] Young, “The Biography of a Memorial Icon.”

[63] “Anti-Semitic Stickers found at Memorial Service,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 21 April 1969.

[64] Ibid.

[65] “Youths Will Chain Themselves to Spotlight Treatment of Jews,” Jewish Exponent, 16 May 1969.

[66] Ibid.

[67] Ibid.

[68] Ibid.

[69] Goldman, “Never Bow Your Head,” 184.

[70] Ibid., 185.

[71] Ibid.

Visual appendix

1. Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs by Nathan Rapoport (1964). Photograph by Jaden Cloobeck, September 11, 2021. Philadelphia, PA.

 

2. Informational inscription with Rapoport’s Biography and Monument Context. Photograph by Jaden Cloobeck, September 11, 2021. Philadelphia, PA.

 

3. Another view of the Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs by Nathan Rapoport (1964). Photograph by Jaden Cloobeck, November 5, 2021. Philadelphia, PA.

 

 

 

 

4. The four sides of the Monument’s base (in English with one side in Hebrew). Photograph by Jaden Cloobeck, November 5, 2021. Philadelphia, PA.

 

5. The Avenue of Remembrance Street Sign on Benjamin Franklin Parkway between 16th and Arch Streets. Photograph by Jaden Cloobeck, November 5, 2021. Philadelphia, PA.

 

6. The 2018 Addition to the original 1964 Monument, the Horwitz-Wasserman Plaza. Photograph by Jaden Cloobeck, November 5, 2021. Philadelphia, PA.

 

Acknowledgements 

I would like to thank everyone who advised me in my research for this report on the Monument to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs. Specifically, I would like to thank Prof. Jared Farmer and Molly Leech for their feedback and encouragement. I would also like to thank Judaic Studies Librarian Dr. Arthur Kiron, whom I was fortunate enough to visit and interview at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Also, thank you to Prof. Beth Wenger, who offered candid feedback on how I could improve my paper after my initial draft. This paper’s primary sources are largely thanks to the Shnaper Papers, which are made up of documents, letters and scrapbooks assembled by Abram Shnaper, which was acquired by Temple University’s Special Collections Research Center in 2014.