Community Focused

Oregon Holocaust Memorial

Owner: American Jewish Committee Architect: Atlas Landscape Architecture In 1994, a local group of Holocaust survivors dreamed of building an Oregon Holocaust Memorial. A small cobble stoned area complete with cast stone bench, European lamppost and cast bronze artifacts represent the Town Square. The Walk towards the memorial is made of cobblestone pathway inset with granite bars leading from the Square to the core of the Memorial. Two nine-foot tall by five-foot wide, foot-thick polished granite panels etched with a narrative history of the Holocaust and the events leading to it merge into the Witness Wall which is a nine- foot high by sixty-foot long curved basalt wall punctuated by cast bronze panels carrying quotations from interviews with Holocaust survivors.

A twenty-five ton basalt boulder anchors the end of the wall and beneath it is a vault that holds soil from each of the six killing camps of the Holocaust. On the reverse side of the witness wall is clad in 25 nine-foot tall by three-foot wide polished granite panels, each etched with the names of family members of local survivors and loved ones who perished in the Holocaust.