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By Nora B. |
Last Updated: December 9, 2003
The light changed to green, yet we still looked both ways before entering the crosswalk across the major highway. We were headed towards the Quincy market area to find the next Starbucks, grab some coffee, and make a stop at their powder room. As we came to the other side of the street, there stood amidst an artificial cloud of steam a strange looking grouping of tall pillars. “What’s that?” I naively asked one of my friends who was a resident of the Boston area. “That’s the Holocaust memorial,” she replied.
I had never seen anything like it. It was sitting across from some shops surrounded by streets and people rushing by. We entered the open modern looking structure in astonishment. Looking down to the right and left of the stones on which we were standing, there read quotes which were etched into the floor. The quotes explained horrifying incidents and devastating facts and statistics.
In the upward direction stood a bunch of rectangular, glass, towering pillars spaced evenly to represent the five or six major concentration camp. When approaching each pair of mirroring pillars, we tried to make out what was the continuous pattern etched on these tall, transparent, pillars. And then it hit. The disgust, hatred, whatever you want to call it. We realized that the fine white text recorded the exact numbers of the people who perished at these death camp sites. There were millions of numbers printed all the way up on the two pillars which reached up and called to the sky. Directly below the pillars were seas of sparkling lights and artificial smoke rising from underneath a metal grill.
Although amazed by the detailed work put into creating this memorial, we walked through all five sets of pillars, and read all the quotes and short blurbs about the heartbreaking misfortunes done to people not too long ago. We looked briefly in awe at all the numbers given to the people who were murdered during the Holocaust. It was unbelievable how small the text was, and how many numbers were fit onto those pillars. Numbers of innocent people, who perished under the oppression of others.
As we exited and looked back on the site in quiet prayer, lights illuminated the site in the midst of darkness. Such a structure seemed to be something very special, yet eye opening.
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