Dear Friends,
The Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation has much to be grateful for. With your support, we have transformed the site around Nathan Rapoport’s Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs from an aging and underutilized space into a beautiful park for learning and remembrance.
Today, the new Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza remains the only monument to the Holocaust in Philadelphia, but it is much more than that. The Memorial Plaza is a unique and innovative space in which people of all ages and backgrounds can gather to commemorate one of the worst genocides in human history, and discover how our constitutional protections shield us from from experiencing a tragedy of similar proportions on American soil. Our space honors those who passed, and those who carry on their legacy. Together, we have created something remarkable.
Now is the time to capitalize on our momentum. We see more visitors at the Memorial Plaza every day: student groups tour our Plaza and engage with our educational materials, families visit on their vacations, and Philadelphians passing by stop to marvel at our statue and read our Six Pillars. As we grow our relationships with our Holocaust education and community partners, we expect even more activity.
And, unfortunately, now is the time that education against hatred and bigotry is needed most. We have seen historic highs in anti-Semitism in the past few years, with life and death consequences. Without a concentrated effort to keep the lessons at the Holocaust in the forefront of our minds, we may face dire results.
To build our capacity and strengthen our organization, we are launching an endowment campaign that will help us maintain the Memorial Plaza as a safe, clean, and attractive environment. In the coming years, we want to do more: train more teachers, reach more students, and bring more people to the Plaza to ultimately improve the state of Holocaust education regionally. This is how we work towards meeting the charge of “Never Again.”
Your support marks your commitment to this challenging, and urgently important, work. We invite you to get involved today.
Warmly,
David Adelman
Board Chairman
Eszter Kutas
Executive Director