F
rom a retirement mecca to the
art deco capital of the world,
South Miami Beach has boomed
in the past two years, brightened by
restored hotels, new restaurants and
plenty of yuppies. The transformation
is most evident along the newly
reopened Ocean Drive, a palm tree
shaded promenade stretching from
5th to 15th streets. The city of Miami
Beach spent $2.4 million to widen
Ocean Drive and spruce up adjacent
Lummus Park. Real estate developers
are pumping millions of dollars into
refurbishing dilapidated ocean front
hotels, once inhabited by low income
Jewish retirees.
The verandas where the elderly
once rocked and sunned themselves,
are now open air cafes where young
professionals and European tourists
drink cappuccino. Outside the Park
Central Hotel, tall, angular models
pose for photographers against the
alluring backdrop of sunny beaches,
bright pastel hotels and classic cars —
a throwback to the 1930s when South
Beach was used as a movie set.
Much of the credit — and the blame
— for remaking Miami Beach goes to
preservationists, many Jewish, who
got more than 800 buildings in a single
square mile area listed on the
National Register of Historic Places.
One of the Jewish preservationists,
Barbara Capitman, now in her 70s, is
known as "the lady who discovered the
district." She formed the Miami
Design Preservation League in 1976
and is now president of the Art Deco
Societies of America.
"It was like clearing the stage,
creating low land to start a new city
with a different purpose," Capitman
says. Miami Beach's art deco revival
received accolades from architects,
business and city leaders across the
country, but Capitman says the
movement displaced many low income
elderly Jews. "In senior circles, it's
considered a major tragedy, that this
whole population of elderly people
should be wiped out, their political
base eroded."
Rose Hochman couldn't agree more.
A petite woman in her late 70s, she
was questioned about the art deco
revival as she walked briskly down
Meridian Avenue toward her apart-
ment, pulling a shopping cart behind
South Florida Pays Tribute
To Holocaust Victims
ELLEN BERNSTEIN
Special to the Jewish News
M
iami Beach — The gigantic
bronze arm towers above a
quiet grove of palm trees. Its
sculptured hand opens toward the
azure sky in what the artist suggests
is a gesture of hope for mankind.
Yet the arm bears a mark of man's
dehumanization — a number tatooed
by the Nazis, symbolizing the fate of
six million Jews who perished during
the Holocaust. And clinging to the
forearm are emaciated figures,
screaming out, lifting their arms in
terror.
The 42-foot sculpture, erected near
Miami Beach City Hall, is the power-
fully emotional centerpiece of a
memorial honoring the Jewish vic-
tims of the Holocaust.
Built with more than $2.5 million
in private contributions, the two-acre
landscaped monument was dedicated
Feb. 4. at a ceremony attended by
dignitaries such as Nobel Laureate
Elie Wiesel, a child survivor of the
Holocaust. Also present were many
South Floridians who survived
Hitler's genocide of the Jews during
World War II.
"It seemed only fitting that a com-
munity with one of the largest Holo-
caust survivor populations in the
world ... should erect a Holocaust
memorial that would stand as a per-
manent reminder to future genera-
tions of Nazi persecution, as well as a
symbol of the world's indifference to
genocide," said Helen Fagin, a board
member of the Miami Beach Holo-
caust Memorial Committee, who
spoke by telephone.
The committee, chaired by Phila-
delphia Eagles owner Norman
Braman, was formed in 1985 to
oversee the project and privately
raise funds. The committee is corn-
prised of five Holocaust survivors,
including Fagin and Miami Beach
City Commissioner Abe Resnick, the
real estate developer who acquired
Hitler's yacht at an auction and had
it publicly sunk. Others on the com-
mittee include Ezra Katz, a son of
survivors, Rabbi Solomon Schiff, ex-
ecutive director of the Rabbinical
Association of Greater Miami and
Kenneth Treister, the project's archi-
tect and artist.
Active in Miami's Jewish commu-
nity, Treister has created Holocaust-
related art and designed one of
Miami's Reform temples. The
Memorial Committee entrusted him
with interpreting the Holocaust ar-
tistically.
"To depict the Holocaust is im-
possible, but we try to do something.
To do nothing is worse," said
Treister, who designed the public
memorial for free. He traveled
periodically to the Mexico City
Photo by Lenny Cohen
"It isn't the center of Jewish life it
once was," says Rabbi Tibor Stern,
who, because of a dwindling congrega-
tion, plans to merge the Jacob C.
Cohen Community Synagogue with
another synagogue in mid-Miami
Beach. "It's a different Miami Beach."
At least three of the 10 synagogues
on Miami Beach are closing or plan to
close, according to a Nov. 28 New York
Times article. Only two of eight but-
cher shops remain. National Jewish
groups like the American Jewish Con-
gress are moving their offices.
While other urban centers such as
Baltimore, Cleveland and Chicago
have lost their original intown Jewish
neighborhoods, nowhere is the loss
more mourned than in Miami Beach,
says Rabbi Stern. "It's considered the
national bedroom of the Jewish corn-
munity because people come here for
vacation. Everyone is attached to
Miami Beach. It's not a local commu-
nity."
A gigantic hand rising 42 feet is the centerpiece of a new Holocaust memorial in Miami Beach.
foundry, where dozens of workers
cast the 25-ton sculpture. It recently
arrived in Miami after a 2,000 mile
journey through six states on two flat
bed trucks.
To reach the rotunda where the
arm rises, a visitor can take either of
two paths around a reflecting pool
where majestic white water lilies
float. White is a color of mourning in
some cultures, including the Sephar-
dic Jewish tradition, said Treister.
Somber, black granite winged
walls form a semi-circle around the
reflecting pool. Imbedded in the
black stone are the now familiar
photographs taken when Allied
forces liberated the concentration
camps. Words on the panels
chronologically tell the story of the
Holocaust — from Kristallnacht un-
til the camps' liberation. On the
other half of the wall, names of vic-
tims, submitted by their loved ones,
are chiseled into the granite, not
unlike the Vietnam Memorial in
Washington, D.C.
"We wanted the memorial to be in-
formative so that people in the next
generation, when there are no more
witnesses to verify and vouchsafe,
would be reading about it," said
Fagin, who wrote the chronological
history. Fagin is the retired director
of Judaic Studies at the University of
Miami.
The black walls converge at a
small, round vestibule made of
Jerusalem stone. Like the city of
Jerusalem, the native stone
shimmers in gold when the sun sets.
"It's a place to take a breath or say a
prayer," said artist Treister.
Inside the sanctuary, the sun
filters through a yellow stained glass
Star of David, inscribed with Jude,
the Nazi symbol of Jewish repres-
sion. The visitor walks through a
constricting tunnel that lists the
names of death camps and then
emerges into daylight to see the large
hand rising from the rotunda.
Around the statue, the viewer can
walk among bronze groupings of
nearly life-size human figures.
"Their emotions show horror, the
realization they may die. The second
emotion is the love of family, the love
of children," Treister said.
The dehumanized human family is
a theme throughout the memorial,
the artist said. At the start, a visitor
sees a bronze figure of a joyful, smil-
ing woman holding hands with her
two happy children. When the viewer
emerges from the entire journey
around the reflecting pool, this same
woman and two children are dead.
"It's an environment where each
person who views it brings to it their
own feelings," Treister said. The
memorial serves as solace to sur-
vivors and to others who lost family,
he said. And it will deliver a powerful
message to those who learned about
the Holocaust only through books or
to those who know nothing at all.
Two young German tourists, who
didn't speak English, visited the
memorial. "They were crying as they
viewed the photographs."
"It should serve the purpose of
what a book cannot do," Fagin said.
"The person who goes through the
memorial will emerge a little chang-
ed." ❑
To find out how the names of loved
ones who died in the Holocaust can be
inscribed on the Memorial's wall,
write the Holocaust Memorial Com-
mittee, Inc., 2800 Biscayne Boulevard
Suite 500, Miami, Fla. 33137
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
27