MEMORIAL DESIGN

The handful of Jews who survived the Nazi Holocaust escaped Europe to re-establish lives in communities such as New Haven.  During the 1970’s, these survivors, their neighbors and friends worked with then Mayor Frank Logue to identify this corner of Edgewood Park in New Haven as the home for a Memorial to the Holocaust. 

The Memorial was built to remember those who perished, to honor those who helped survivors reclaim new lives and to thank the New Haven community for welcoming them.  The Memorial was financed entirely through private donations of time, expertise and money.  Completed in 1977, this New Haven Holocaust Memorial became the first Holocaust Memorial built on public land in the United States.

Mayor Frank Logue commited the City to make parkland available and expedited all permits through City departments.  The location selected, a corner of Edgewood Park, faces New Haven's oldest Jewish cemeteries.  

"In 1977...the late Arthur Spiegel asked me if I would draw a little plan for a Holocaust memorial.  And I drew a Star of David and I sketched in some evergreens for a little memorial.  Then they asked me if I would do something more to show what the concentration camps looked like and that's when I called my friend Gus Franzoni, the architect, and he enhanced the plan by drawing what you might call barbed wire that surrounded the concentration camps.  They built the memorial and I supplied, of course, the evergreens...                

I just felt...that whatever I was thinking about, the impact should be to the non-Jewish population, at least to see it and ask about it and be aware about it, and then maybe ask more questions about it and become more aware of it."                         Marvin Cohen

18 markers display the names of concentration camps, forced labor camps deportation denters and killing fields used by the Nazis.  In Jewish numerology, the number 18 signifies LIFE.