Monday, April 11, 2005

Remembering the Past, Shaping the Future

Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs'and Heroes' Remembrance Authoritythe Jewish people’s memorial to the murdered Six Million and symbolizes the ongoing confrontation with the rupture engendered by the Holocaust. Containing the world’s largest repository of information on the Holocaust,

the HALL OF NAMES

functions as a repository for the Pages of Testimony of millions of Holocaust victims, a memorial to those who perished, and—in a separate room—a place where visitors can conduct searches of the Shoah Victims’ Names Database.

The main Hall is composed of two cones: one extending ten meters skywards, echoed by a reciprocal well-like cone excavated into the natural underground rock, its base filled with water. Visitors enter the Hall in the circular space—nine meters high and eleven meters in diameter—between the two cones onto an elevated ring-shaped platform.

From here they are able to view the upper cone, where a display, designed by Dorit Harel, features some 600 photographs of Holocaust victims and fragments of Pages of Testimony; this is reflected in the water at the bottom of the lower cone, commemorating those victims whose names remain unknown.

Surrounding the platform is the circular repository, housing the Pages of Testimony collected so far, with empty spaces for those yet to be submitted—room for six million Pages in total.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home