Remembering The Holocaust,
Songs Of Dreaming Birds

NEHAMA STAMPFER GLOGOWER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

lessed is the match
consumed in kindling
flame.
Blessed is the flame that
burns in the secret fastness
of the heart.
Blessed is the heart with
strength to stop its beating
for honor's sake.
Blessed is the match
consumed in kindling
flame.
This poem was penned by the
young Hannah Szenes shortly
before her fatal mission to help
rescue Hungarian Jews in 1944.
Fifty years later and two conti-
nents away, those words of faith
in the face of despair rang out
again last week in the Univer-
sity of Michigan's Rackham
Auditorium for the dedication
of the Ann Arbor Holocaust
Memorial.
The brief ceremony, during
which the memorial sculpture
was officially presented to the
university, culminated a six-
year effort by the Ann Arbor
Holocaust Memorial Founda-
tion, Inc., an organization
formed in response to a 1988
Aim Arbor City Council resolu-
tion to establish a "Place of
Remembrance" for the 6 million
Jews and other victims of the
Holocaust.
Created by the artist
Leonard Baskin, the statue de-
picts a seated figure — deliber-
ately not recognizable as male
or female — with a fist over its
face and a hand raised toward
the sky. Further landscaping
will create a space that can be
used for quiet reflection and
meditation.
"Why a Holocaust memori-
al in Ann Arbor, on the univer-
sity campus?" asked Dr. David
Schteingart, fund-raising chair
of the Memorial Foundation
and master of ceremonies of the
event. "It is a symbol of our corn-
mitment not to forget, a way
that the Holocaust can become
part of our collective conscience.
The university is an appropri-
ate spot, since future leaders are
trained here."
This Holocaust memorial, the
first on a public university cam-
pus, is also dedicated to the
memory of Raoul Wallenberg,
a U-M alumnus who is credited
with saving thousands of lives
during the Holocaust.
The memorial's location, on
Washington and Fletcher
Streets, next to Rackham
Auditorium, was not merely a
random choice. In 1848, this be-
came the site of Michigan's first

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The new Holocaust Memorial in Ann Arbor.

Jewish cemetery, which was re-
located in 1900 when the Uni-
versity acquired the property.
Keynote speaker Todd En-
delman, William Haber Profes-
sor of Modern Jewish History
at the U-M, explored various
historical attempts to find
meaning in the Holocaust. He
pointed out that the State of
Israel could have come into ex-
istence — perhaps even on a
more sturdy basis — without
the horrors of World War H. So
the mere fact of Israel's exis-
tence cannot provide meaning
for the Holocaust, he said.
Israel's importance vis-a-vis the
Holocaust is that Jews were
given an opportunity to memo-
rialize, he said. "Without any
sound (of joy in Israel's estab-
lishment) to counter the silence
of the ashes, it would be un-
bearable to contemplate the
Holocaust."
Professor Endelman also not-
ed the power of Schindler's List,
the story of a man who saved
the lives of hundreds of Jews,
to move audiences, "even
though it was unrepresentative
of the experience of 99 percent
of the Jews who fell into Nazi
hands." Focusing on the few

reports of armed rebellion, spir-
itual resistance and the acts of
Righteous Gentiles is one of the
ways to "avoid the overwhelm-
ing despair of those days, and
to do otherwise is to give up on
humanity."
Professor Endelman con-
cluded that it is extremely dif-
ficult, if not impossible, to
extract lessons from the Holo-

"We may never find
meaning, but the
telling itself
remains critical."

—Todd Endelman

caust. As for the search for
meaning, he suggested turning
to the survivors themselves.
"There is a motif in diaries and
memoirs: the critical notion of
telling the world. The need to
testify sustained them and
gave them a sense of purpose.
Listening and retelling is an act
of faith in the future. We may
never find meaning, but the
telling itself remains critical."

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