Ceremony Marks Anniversary Of Allied Bombings Near Auschwitz ,

One of New York City's most impressive yet least-known Holocaust memorials was the site of a recent ceremony marking the 65th anniversary of the U.S. bombing raids near the Auschwitz death camp.

The Memorial to Victims of the Injustice of the Holocaust, as it is titled, is a 27-foot high sculpture carved into the side of the New York State Appellate Division Courthouse, located at Madison Avenue and 25th Street in Manhattan.

The sculpture recreates the aerial view of Auschwitz that appeared in reconnaissance photos taken by Allied planes over the death camp in 1944.

The words "Indifference to Injustice is the Gate to Hell" are engraved around the image, which is the only Holocaust memorial on a public building in the United States.

(L-R) Hon. Francis T. Murphy, Mayor Ed Koch, Rabbi Dr. Haskel Lookstein,

and Prof. David S. Wyman standing in front of the memorial sculpture.

The aerial photos have come to symbolize the failure of the Allies to bomb the gas chambers and crematoria, because they demonstrate that the planes were within striking distance of the mass murder machinery as they photographed Nazi oil factories and other military targets next to the camp.

Political notables, State Supreme Court justices, Jewish leaders and the artist who created the sculpture were the featured speakers at a recent event at the site, sponsored by The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.

The commemorative event took place in the courtroom of the presiding justice of the Appellate Court, the Hon. Luis A. Gonzalez, who delivered the opening remarks welcoming the large audience of legal scholars, attorneys, courthouse officials, Holocaust survivors, and other members of the public.

Justice Francis T. Murphy speaking at the event

The keynote speaker was the former presiding justice of the Appellate division, the Hon. Francis T. Murphy, who in 1987 conceived the idea of creating a Holocaust memorial at the site.

In his moving address at the event, Justice Murphy appealed to Jewish children around the world to learn from the Holocaust "a lesson which will not be found in your schoolbooks."

That lesson, he said, is that "the assurance of your lives as Jews lies only in yourselves, in your unyielding faith in God, in your perception of man as he is - surely your lives as Jews should not lie in the mouths of politicians, and diplomats, nor in the shifting sentiments of people."

The next speaker was former New York City mayor Ed Koch, who inaugurated the memorial when it was established in 1990.

Koch said that remembering the Roosevelt administration's failure to intervene against the Nazi genocide should inspire our generation to act against today's perpetrators and planners of genocide, from the Arab leaders of Sudan who have been slaughtering the non-Arab residents of Darfur, to the leaders of Iran who have threatened to annihilate Israel.

Koch was followed by Rabbi Dr. Haskel Lookstein, spiritual leader of Kehilath Jeshurun and the Ramaz School and the author of a book about American Jewry's response to the Holocaust.

Rabbi Lookstein, a longtime member of the New York City Human Rights Commission, said that all Americans have a moral responsibility to speak out to ensure that there is no repeat of the apathetic response of the Free World to totalitarianism in the 1940s.

Noted artist Harriet Feigenbaum, who created the memorial sculpture, described the creative process behind the memorial, for which she received an Award for Excellence in Design from the Art Commission of the City of New York.

The speakers also paid tribute to Prof. David S. Wyman, who traveled from his home in Massachusetts to attend the event. Prof. Wyman is the historian who first discovered the documents proving that U.S. planes bombed targets within five miles of the gas chambers.

Until Prof. Wyman's research, it was widely assumed that Allied aircraft were unable to reach Auschwitz - which is what the Roosevelt administration claimed in 1944.

Read Comments (0)

Ceremony Marks Anniversary Of Allied Bombings Near Auschwitz ,