Memorial Critique
Holocaust memorial
San Francisco, United States
The Holocaust Memorial placed outside of the
California Palace of the Legion of Honor, (museum), is
located in the Lincoln Park, at San Francisco, California
facing at the golden gate. This memorial was designed
by the American painter and sculptor George Segal. This
memorial was made because in 1981 the city invited
George Segal to create a design for a competition, and
this led to being built and finally opened to public in
1984. It consists of ten figures lying down on the
cement floor, in top of each other, representing the
daily deaths in the camps, and there is one survival who
is indeed touching the wire, ( which the purpose of it
was to stop the Jews from escaping, because it was
electrocuting), and this man is executing himself,
ending all his torment in the extermination camp.
Positive:
Positive aspects about the memorial is that it
accomplishes to represent the real atrocious acts that
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Nazi Germans did to the Jews. How they treated Jews as
a completely inferior race and wanted to exterminate
them all. The bronze figures painted in white are Jews
who were sent to extermination camps and at some
point, were killed by the Nazis. This memorial also
transmits how people lost friends, family, and even
their own children, never to see each other again; this
led to hundreds of Jews taking their own life.
Negative:
Negative ideas are that tons of people find this
memorial disturbing as it is facing at the golden gate
and outside the Legion of Honor museum. As it is
situated close to the sea, then common cloudy days
really depress many people when they pass next to the
memorial. Another big problem of the memorial is that
graffiti and vandalism is extremely common to that are
as so many people visit it each year as it is situated in
an open place without security assuring it.
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Conclusion:
In conclusion, this is a very impacting memorial as
it really represents how much death was spread
around Europe in the holocaust. As this memorial
can be really significant to the Jews, I sincerely
think that more security should be implemented to
avoid disrespectful behavior of people. Even
though it can emotionally negatively affect people,
it is the exact realistic interpretation of how the
holocaust really was, reduced to a concept of a
memorial. To never forget, and never happen again.
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