Jim bao Today with ©opyright on all pictu®es and text: Fallen Monuments and Contested Memorials in Stockholm and New York

Friday, July 7, 2023

Fallen Monuments and Contested Memorials in Stockholm and New York - Taliban work?

Years of the Covid Pandemic resulted in the death of numerous Holocaust survivors. Swedish press reported about it and also such a situation was described in the Jewish elderly homes in New York. Covid Pandemic actually sped up the death of Holocaust survivors as most of them left us during 2010-2020.

Svenska Dagbladet, a Swedish newspaper reported on April 11th, 2020: The contagion silences the Holocaust's last witnesses. The wind is cold at Skogskyrkogården on this April day. Soon it will be time for another Jewish funeral. Then another one, the same day. And one more tomorrow. Last week, ten funerals took place here, nine were corona-related. At least half of those who died were Holocaust survivors.

The year 2020 marks 75 anniversary of the end of the Holocaust and also the UNRRA action White Boats that brought to Sweden thousands of Holocaust survivors, mainly from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Many of them lived just a few days or weeks after arrival in Sweden. Numerous Holocaust survivors died reaching just 50-60 years.

In Stockholm where I live, I initiated two different Holocaust Monuments. One at the Jewish synagogue and the second at the Northern cemetery. One is left...

The first was supposed to be ready in 1995, and the second one was ready in 2019 to mark the year 2020, the 75 anniversary of the end of the Holocaust and Jewish women, the Holocaust survivors that died after they were brought to Stockholm by the White Boat mission, starting July 1st, 1945. Survivors that become Holocaust victims. Most of them were the only survivors of the big families that were murdered in the death camps like Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno, Majdanek, and Belzec.

So what happened around 2020 in Stockholm and New York. Concerning the Jewish population, the new generation took over the leading position in Jewish Congregations.

New generations of Jews in Stockholm Congregation and Park Avenue Synagogue decided to remove Holocaust monuments.

Why?

In the New York Jewish congregation, Park Avenue Synagogue performed the desecration of the Holocaust Monument at Madison Avenue without permission from the donors. The monument was an artwork by Nathan Rapoport that was specially incorporated into the building from the very beginning, already when the Educational building was planned. Now, the only item that is left between the former top and middle panel (between 1 and 2) is the stone with one word in Hebrew - Remember. Of this action, Park Avenue Synagogue got three rooms with windows at Madison Avenue. Until recently, the monument, the tryphtyk including two sculptures in bronze and 16 stones with inscriptions could be seen above the Madison Avenue entrance to this beautiful synagogue, where according to rabbi at Park Avenue Synagogue, "every Jew and non-Jew who comes into the orbit of this institution and what it represents – all of these are thundering statements that the values of Korczak, his children, those murdered in the Warsaw Ghetto and all the Six Million live on." These words were delivered in the sermon year 2013. The rabbi, Eliot J Cosgrove, continued: Tomorrow evening we will begin our observance of Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Years of the Covid Pandemic resulted in the death of numerous Holocaust survivors. Swedish media reported about it and also such a situation was in the Jewish elderly homes in New York. Covid Pandemic actually sped up the death of Holocaust survivors as most of them left us during 2010-2020.