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Ohio Breaks Ground On Holocaust Memorial
< < Back toGovernor John Kasich broke ground Wednesday afternoon for a Holocaust memorial on the grounds of the Ohio Statehouse.
Joyce Garver Keller, Executive Director of Ohio Jewish Communities, began the rainy groundbreaking ceremony by saying the memorial would serve to “inspire people to act differently in face of hatred.”
Daniel Libeskind, the renowned Polish architect behind the design of the project, was present for the ceremony.
“This is a very important, very deep thing for me personally. The holocaust is not something abstract that I researched in the library, because my parents were holocaust survivors,” Libeskind said.
Libeskind’s design consists of an 18-foot-tall, bronze memorial with a steel Star of David featured in the center.
Governor Kasich had nothing but praise for Libeskind, who was chosen in May to design the memorial.
“Sometimes when greatness is with us, we don’t always see it. We don’t recognize it,” Kasich said, “This is probably the greatest architect alive in the world today.”
Kasich signed legislation in March 2012 which approved the creation of the memorial with oversight provided by the Ohio Arts Council.
The state contributed $300,000 for site work on the memorial while the rest of the $2 million dollar project is being funded privately by Ohio Jewish Communities.
It is currently scheduled to open in April 2014.