It seems to me that this large sculpture could serve as the medium for an even broader message concerning diversity, tolerance, peace and differences among people. Because it is a physical space, it can also be used as a 'classroom' for story-telling and discussion. To my knowledge, there is no space that is like this in Pittsburgh (and perhaps even across the nation). I am very enthusiastic about this interesting idea and installation and support it without reservation.
Fours year it took to gather 6 million can tops--because 6 million is such a large number to comprehend. This instillation will provide people old and young a visual representation of what happened in WWII. It will solidfy the response of "Never Again". Never Again for Jews or any other group of people. The fact that students collected all the materials, designed the sculpture and are prepared to fundraise for it, says a whole lot of the commitment these students have to seeing this project to completion.
This sculpture will bring people from throughout the region to see it and learn from it. It will be a wonderful addition to our city.
As just one of the many dedicated folks who attended planning meetings four years ago, discussed the cultural and local significance of this memorial project, and spent dozens of hours filling architectural glass block with thousands of soda can tabs, it is a relief to know that this project might now finally move forward--that Squirrel Hill and the Community Day School will now possess a very public and interactive space with which to learn, mourn, understand, and meditate. Much of the crucial work has already been done; the tabs have been collected and the blocks have been filled, painstakingly and slowly--a significant gesture of recognition and contemplation for the tremendous loss of life during the Holocaust, each individual human being lost represented by one aluminum tab. This sculptural work of public art, this partial enclosure of space open to the sky and the trees above, is an architectural gesture meant to evoke and symbolize many things, offering a complex and dynamic experience to those who enter the enclosure and behold its glass walls. It will be a space for the Jewish people, the Community Day School, the residents of Squirrel Hill, and humanity itself in a larger sense. Failure to realize this project would be a crime and a tremendous disservice to the community.
Where does one start to explain the significance of Community Day School's Holocaust Memorial Sculpture Project? We as a world have to stop genocide and remembering the Holocaust and the lessons it teaches, helps us understand that "NEVER AGAIN" will we let this happen!
This project although created by a Jewish Day School and with guidance from an Artist in Residence program by the very capable Elena Hiatt Houlihan could help inform people from the local Pittsburgh area and visiting groups from all over the country and maybe even the world, that genocide is unacceptable to all peoples.
This wonderful all glass block scupture, architurally designed in the shape of the Star of David, with each block (there are hundreds) filled with thousands of pop tabs each one to remind us of a Jew that was killed just because he/she was a jew.
It will be an amazing addition to any public place
This sculpture is a wonderful opportunity to teach children and the community the value of listening to young people. The students at Community Day have begun a collaborative project that will contribute to an ongoing discussion of the Holocaust far into the future. It's sustainability is without question given both the lessons that can be learned and developed from this project and the artistic and physical structure that has been designed. It is valuable for children to witness the many forms which learning can take and the role of creativity in this process.
I am posting this comment for Avi Munro who is having trouble logging on:
"This project has been a focal point for hundreds of Pittsburgh area students and families for over a dozen years. It has touched Jewish and non-Jewish families alike and all are waiting to see it come to fruition. It is a triumph of community, a triumph of education, and a triumph over inhumanity. Humans find it easier to destroy other humans when they dehumanize them. Six million is an incomprehensible number. We are numb to its meaning. One of the most compelling aspects of this sculpture is the fact that it is going to be the only place in the world where one can walk through and easily visualize six million items. I imagine that schools, universities, tours from around the world will find this to be a worthwhile destination. The fact that Community Day School students will create learning materials and be the ones to take people on tours means it will be an enduring and dynamic lesson for generations to come."
I'm posting this comment for Linda Hurwitz who is having trouble logging on:
This project "Keeping Tabs" represents an entire effort of the Pittsburgh community which collected 6 million aluminum pop can tabs! What a remarkable feat when people cooperate. For students to visualize this enormous number, their teacher challenged them to set the goal that represents the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust. They watched the enormity of this many of any object grow and they used the project to inform many, many people about the history of the murder of the Jewish people and many others under Nazism. To complete their goal the artistic Jewish star made of over 900 glass blocks will serve the community as a stimulus to learn more about this era of history; truly it is one of the most important events of the 20th century!
Linda F. Hurwitz, former Director of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh
This project can be a dynamic and moving memorial to those whose lives were lost and a beacon of hope that by remembering we will prevent such inhumanity in the future. The educational curriculum being developed for visitors to the sculpture will fill a gap in public education because we are learning that the Holocaust is slowly being omitted from history classes.
I've just received numerous letters of support from community members and organizations and I am attaching them to the grant.
I am posting this comment for Alan R. Sklan who could not log on:
We collected and collected, for years we collected pop-tabs. We counted them and filled-up half a classroom. We lived with them! Then a committee of students met with the Artist and designed this sculpture -- and we began to fill the glass-blocks (we lived with them again). Now we are ready to build; we must build. All along we have been learning. The first students to begin have graduated from college! ...we must continue to teach the young ones you have not yet learned.
As a child, I was privileged to have learned first hand from teachers who were Holocaust survivors. They told each of us, and showed us through their passion and their sense of urgency for our learning, that our very existence was a gift. We had been spared the horrors of the Holocaust – as had they – and we were obligated to remember and to teach others. The Pop Tab Project of Community Day School is a debt we owe to each and every victim. It is a promise we make to never forget and to never stop teaching and showing future generations that our humanity matters. My daughter participated in collecting pop tabs. My friends and neighbors and coworkers did too. We learned together. And when we filled the glass blocks – pop tab by pop tab – we remembered. Faceless, nameless victims were for that moment remembered. The sculpture itself will assure that they are remembered for ever more.
As the 8th grade Language Arts teacher who spends most of the year reading literature from the Holocaust, the prospect of this sculpture is exciting, to say the least. It would add significant depth to our lessons to be able to interract with the scupture, to see what 6,000,000 looks like, and for the 8th graders to be able to serve as experts on the project, speaking to groups that would come to see it. Our students' experience at Community Day would be enriched significantly, too, I think, by housing such a project here: it would be an important piece of which they could be proud. Pittsburgh, as far as I know, has no Holocaust memorial of any kind. We need one. This one.
As a newspaper writer, I first came upon Community Day School in Pittsburgh and one great teacher, Bill Walter, almost a decade ago. The teacher with the school's support started to collect 6 million can tabs, one for each Jewish soul lost in the Holocaust. It was to put into context the overwhelming number of lives taken. The story may have ended there if it were not for the children who gained such remarkable insight into humanity and worth. After years of gathering the tabs, they were not finished. It would only be fitting to find a way to share the knowledge they had learned. I feel such excitement at the chance that a lasting memorial to the Holocaust might become a reality. After 70 years, most everything is forgotten, distorted or ignored. How refreshing that this group of educators has found a new, respectful way to share hope, remembrance and reverance. It would do your organization well to become involved in such a heartwarming and meaningful endeavor.
I have tried to upload numerous letters of support from the community which have been forwarded to me. The file is too large. Readers and reviewers may contact me if they would like to read them.
Thanks to all who contributed their time, thoughts, stories and hard work to bring this sculpture into being.
Obviously the two comments above are the result of spam marketing techniques and have nothing to do with the changemakers mission or this project. I hope the site organizers can prevent this from happening again.
Comments
It seems to me that this large sculpture could serve as the medium for an even broader message concerning diversity, tolerance, peace and differences among people. Because it is a physical space, it can also be used as a 'classroom' for story-telling and discussion. To my knowledge, there is no space that is like this in Pittsburgh (and perhaps even across the nation). I am very enthusiastic about this interesting idea and installation and support it without reservation.
Fours year it took to gather 6 million can tops--because 6 million is such a large number to comprehend. This instillation will provide people old and young a visual representation of what happened in WWII. It will solidfy the response of "Never Again". Never Again for Jews or any other group of people. The fact that students collected all the materials, designed the sculpture and are prepared to fundraise for it, says a whole lot of the commitment these students have to seeing this project to completion.
This sculpture will bring people from throughout the region to see it and learn from it. It will be a wonderful addition to our city.
As just one of the many dedicated folks who attended planning meetings four years ago, discussed the cultural and local significance of this memorial project, and spent dozens of hours filling architectural glass block with thousands of soda can tabs, it is a relief to know that this project might now finally move forward--that Squirrel Hill and the Community Day School will now possess a very public and interactive space with which to learn, mourn, understand, and meditate. Much of the crucial work has already been done; the tabs have been collected and the blocks have been filled, painstakingly and slowly--a significant gesture of recognition and contemplation for the tremendous loss of life during the Holocaust, each individual human being lost represented by one aluminum tab. This sculptural work of public art, this partial enclosure of space open to the sky and the trees above, is an architectural gesture meant to evoke and symbolize many things, offering a complex and dynamic experience to those who enter the enclosure and behold its glass walls. It will be a space for the Jewish people, the Community Day School, the residents of Squirrel Hill, and humanity itself in a larger sense. Failure to realize this project would be a crime and a tremendous disservice to the community.
Where does one start to explain the significance of Community Day School's Holocaust Memorial Sculpture Project? We as a world have to stop genocide and remembering the Holocaust and the lessons it teaches, helps us understand that "NEVER AGAIN" will we let this happen!
This project although created by a Jewish Day School and with guidance from an Artist in Residence program by the very capable Elena Hiatt Houlihan could help inform people from the local Pittsburgh area and visiting groups from all over the country and maybe even the world, that genocide is unacceptable to all peoples.
This wonderful all glass block scupture, architurally designed in the shape of the Star of David, with each block (there are hundreds) filled with thousands of pop tabs each one to remind us of a Jew that was killed just because he/she was a jew.
It will be an amazing addition to any public place
This sculpture is a wonderful opportunity to teach children and the community the value of listening to young people. The students at Community Day have begun a collaborative project that will contribute to an ongoing discussion of the Holocaust far into the future. It's sustainability is without question given both the lessons that can be learned and developed from this project and the artistic and physical structure that has been designed. It is valuable for children to witness the many forms which learning can take and the role of creativity in this process.
I am posting this comment for Avi Munro who is having trouble logging on:
"This project has been a focal point for hundreds of Pittsburgh area students and families for over a dozen years. It has touched Jewish and non-Jewish families alike and all are waiting to see it come to fruition. It is a triumph of community, a triumph of education, and a triumph over inhumanity. Humans find it easier to destroy other humans when they dehumanize them. Six million is an incomprehensible number. We are numb to its meaning. One of the most compelling aspects of this sculpture is the fact that it is going to be the only place in the world where one can walk through and easily visualize six million items. I imagine that schools, universities, tours from around the world will find this to be a worthwhile destination. The fact that Community Day School students will create learning materials and be the ones to take people on tours means it will be an enduring and dynamic lesson for generations to come."
I'm posting this comment for Linda Hurwitz who is having trouble logging on:
This project "Keeping Tabs" represents an entire effort of the Pittsburgh community which collected 6 million aluminum pop can tabs! What a remarkable feat when people cooperate. For students to visualize this enormous number, their teacher challenged them to set the goal that represents the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust. They watched the enormity of this many of any object grow and they used the project to inform many, many people about the history of the murder of the Jewish people and many others under Nazism.
To complete their goal the artistic Jewish star made of over 900 glass blocks will serve the community as a stimulus to learn more about this era of history; truly it is one of the most important events of the 20th century!
Linda F. Hurwitz, former Director of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh
This project can be a dynamic and moving memorial to those whose lives were lost and a beacon of hope that by remembering we will prevent such inhumanity in the future. The educational curriculum being developed for visitors to the sculpture will fill a gap in public education because we are learning that the Holocaust is slowly being omitted from history classes.
I've just received numerous letters of support from community members and organizations and I am attaching them to the grant.
Elena Hiatt Houlihan, Artist, Moving Images Studio, elenasunrealisticlife@gmail.com
I am posting this comment for Alan R. Sklan who could not log on:
We collected and collected, for years we collected pop-tabs. We counted them and filled-up half a classroom. We lived with them!
Then a committee of students met with the Artist and designed this sculpture -- and we began to fill the glass-blocks (we lived with them again).
Now we are ready to build; we must build.
All along we have been learning. The first students to begin have graduated from college! ...we must continue to teach the young ones you have not yet learned.
"We must never forget."
I am posting this for Nancy Zionts:
As a child, I was privileged to have learned first hand from teachers who were Holocaust survivors. They told each of us, and showed us through their passion and their sense of urgency for our learning, that our very existence was a gift. We had been spared the horrors of the Holocaust – as had they – and we were obligated to remember and to teach others. The Pop Tab Project of Community Day School is a debt we owe to each and every victim. It is a promise we make to never forget and to never stop teaching and showing future generations that our humanity matters. My daughter participated in collecting pop tabs. My friends and neighbors and coworkers did too. We learned together. And when we filled the glass blocks – pop tab by pop tab – we remembered. Faceless, nameless victims were for that moment remembered. The sculpture itself will assure that they are remembered for ever more.
As the 8th grade Language Arts teacher who spends most of the year reading literature from the Holocaust, the prospect of this sculpture is exciting, to say the least. It would add significant depth to our lessons to be able to interract with the scupture, to see what 6,000,000 looks like, and for the 8th graders to be able to serve as experts on the project, speaking to groups that would come to see it. Our students' experience at Community Day would be enriched significantly, too, I think, by housing such a project here: it would be an important piece of which they could be proud. Pittsburgh, as far as I know, has no Holocaust memorial of any kind. We need one. This one.
As a newspaper writer, I first came upon Community Day School in Pittsburgh and one great teacher, Bill Walter, almost a decade ago. The teacher with the school's support started to collect 6 million can tabs, one for each Jewish soul lost in the Holocaust. It was to put into context the overwhelming number of lives taken. The story may have ended there if it were not for the children who gained such remarkable insight into humanity and worth. After years of gathering the tabs, they were not finished. It would only be fitting to find a way to share the knowledge they had learned. I feel such excitement at the chance that a lasting memorial to the Holocaust might become a reality. After 70 years, most everything is forgotten, distorted or ignored. How refreshing that this group of educators has found a new, respectful way to share hope, remembrance and reverance. It would do your organization well to become involved in such a heartwarming and meaningful endeavor.
I have tried to upload numerous letters of support from the community which have been forwarded to me. The file is too large. Readers and reviewers may contact me if they would like to read them.
Thanks to all who contributed their time, thoughts, stories and hard work to bring this sculpture into being.
Elena Hiatt Houlihan, Artist,
elenasunrealisticlife@gmail.com, www.elenasmovingimages.com
To Whom it May Concern:
Obviously the two comments above are the result of spam marketing techniques and have nothing to do with the changemakers mission or this project. I hope the site organizers can prevent this from happening again.
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