Yad Vashem Children’s Holocaust Memorial, Jerusalem, Israel

Moshe Safdie

1987

In 1976, Safdie was appointed by Israel’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority to design a museum at Yad Vashem devoted to the 1.5 million children who were murdered in the Holocaust. Instead, he created a memorial to them, an underground cavern that visitors enter via an archway and a descending ramp. Inside, a memorial candle burns, in accordance with the Jewish custom for remembering the dead. The single candle illuminates the entire room, its flame reflected and multiplied by glass panels and mirrors, creating an effect of infinity and a sky filled with millions of stars. An audio recording gives the names, ages, and countries of origin of some of the murdered children.

Credits

  1. Photograph by Michal Ronnen Safdie. Courtesy of Moshe Safdie and Associates, Inc.
  2. Photograph by Michal Ronnen Safdie. Courtesy of Moshe Safdie and Associates, Inc.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 10.

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Creator Bio

Moshe Safdie

b. 1938

Architect Moshe Safdie was born in Haifa but moved to Canada as a teenager. He apprenticed with Louis I. Kahn in Philadelphia and returned to Montreal, where he was in charge of the master plan for the 1967 World’s Fair, at which he also presented Habitat ’67, a complex of modular, affordable apartments that remains a landmark. In 1970, Safdie assumed a leading role in the restoration of the Old City of Jerusalem and the reconstruction of a new city center. His projects in Israel include the redesign of Ben Gurion International Airport. He is also responsible for the design of six Canadian public institutions, including the Quebec Museum of Civilization, the National Gallery of Canada, and Vancouver Library Square. Safdie has also worked on a number of commissions in the developing world.

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