B’nai B’rith unveiled today a replica of the 25-foot-high bronze memorial to Jewish victims of the Nazi holocaust it will erect in its Martyrs’ Forest overlooking the entrance to Jerusalem. Sculptor Nathan Rapoport of New York, designed it in the form of two scrolls. The six-foot model will be on display in the B’nai B’rith building through December.
Symbolic scenes in bas relief on the memorial depict chronologically the destruction of the European Jewish community and the rise of Israel. A specially commissioned poem by Nobel laureate Nelly Sachs will be inscribed on the monument’s inside wall in Hebrew, English and Yiddish. Meyer Halperin, chairman of the B’nai B’rith Martyrs’ Forest Committee, said a copy of the model has been shipped to the noted foundry in Pietrasanta, Italy — used for works authorized by the Vatican — where the complex Job of enlarging and casting, expected to take more than 18 months, will be done.
The monument will be the focal point of a500,000-tree section of the Martyrs’ Forest and will serve as a landmark to travelers on the principal highway leading to Jerusalem.
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