Eric Adams, the New York City mayor, and Donovan Richards, the Queens borough president, said on Tuesday that a new Queens Holocaust memorial will be located at Borough Hall.
The memorial, for which the city and borough president’s office allocated $3 million, will honor the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust and the survivors “who rebuilt their lives in New York City,” per the mayor’s office. It added that the memorial will “serve as a permanent site of remembrance, education and unity.”
“It is not enough to say ‘never again.’ We have to live it with our actions too,” Adams stated. “By preserving the stories of both victims and survivors, by creating a permanent space for remembrance and reflection, by promoting understanding and solidarity across generations, this memorial will live out the meaning of ‘never again.’”
“As our city and our country confront the rising tide of antisemitism, our administration will not remain silent,” the mayor said. “We will use our office to call out hate wherever we find it, encourage compassion wherever we need it and create a city where everyone can live side by side in harmony.”
There will be a formal design process to construct “a commemorative garden and public artwork,” and artists, historians and Holocaust survivors will consult on the artwork, according to the mayor’s office.
The borough president said that “no matter how much time passes since the evils of the Holocaust, New York City’s commitment to the pledge of ‘never again’ must never waver.”
“That is why, in the face of rising tides of heinous antisemitism and Holocaust denial across our society, I could not be prouder to lead this effort alongside the administration and the Queens’ Jewish community in creating this critically important memorial here at Queens Borough Hall,” he added.
The mayor’s office said more Holocaust survivors live in New York City than in any other city. “Following the liberation of the concentration camps, thousands of survivors came to New York, many settling in Queens, where they rebuilt their lives, raised families, established businesses, enriched the city’s cultural institutions and helped make New York a global center of Jewish life,” the mayor’s office said.
The Queens Jewish Community Council and local civic and faith leaders first proposed the memorial, it added.
