The Holocaust Learning Experience (HLE), a non-profit developed by MorseLife Health System in West Palm Beach, recently dedicated the Gendelman Children’s Holocaust Memorial, created by acclaimed artist Bruce Gendelman.
“The genesis for this began as we worked with the Palm Beach County Public School District as part of an international memorial making effort, The Butterfly Project, to honor the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust,” said Keith A. Myers, MorseLife’s president and CEO. “We were extremely fortunate that artist Bruce Gendelman lives in Palm Beach and has a passion for Holocaust art. His remarkable vision for this work inspired us to expand our Holocaust Learning Experience, which teaches the lessons of the Holocaust, beyond Palm Beach to where it is now available throughout Florida.”
The only Holocaust memorial in Palm Beach County, the memorial takes the form of a kapok tree cast from 33,000 pounds of bronze that rises 27 feet with a 26-foot-wide canopy and is home to 5,000 ceramic butterflies painted by Palm Beach County Public School District students, Survivors and community members.
“It’s a sculpture, it’s a piece of art, it’s a memorial to honor the 1.5 million children gassed in gas chambers,” Gendelman said. “It is a symbol of what can happen when hate is allowed to fester.”
Designed to withstand South Florida’s climate and extreme weather events, the memorial is the result of a massive undertaking of modeling, engineering, and casting that involved more than 200 craftsmen and engineers. Cast piece-by-piece using the lost-wax method, the tree is comprised of 347 individual castings welded together on-site and 158 upper branches that were cut from bronze plate.
“It took about four and a half years from sketch to finished tree,” Gendelman recalls. “It was very complicated. A lot of engineering, a lot of fun and a lot of trial and error.”
Nearly 400 people attended the dedication ceremony which took place two days in advance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day and included a proclamation paying tribute to the HLE made by Keith A James, Mayor City of West Palm Beach. In addition to remarks by Myers and Gendelman, the occasion was marked by a program with: David S. Mack, chairman MorseLife Health System; Ambassador Michael B. Oren, former Ambassador of Israel to the United States; James S. Snyder, Helen Goldsmith Menschel Director at the Jewish Museum in New York city; and arts educator Allen Caucutt.
As the memorial was dedicated, Rabbi Erica Rosenkranz delivered the Kaddish and Sh’hechnyanu and Ashley Shlomovitz from the Shinshin-Israeli Emissary sang Hatikvah.
Gendelman’s practice encompasses landscape, portraiture, the Holocaust, and the COVID pandemic in a variety of media, including oil painting, sculpture, photography, and multi-media installations. His body of post-witness Holocaust artwork has been the focus of solo exhibitions at the National Museum of American Jewish History, the Holocaust Memorial Center in Detroit Michigan, and the Palac Sztuki in Krakow, Poland, a museum that once served as a Nazi headquarters.
The HLE offers in-person lessons on the MorseLife campus in West Palm Beach, which conclude with a time for reflection at the Gendelman Children’s Holocaust Memorial. In addition to lessons on campus, the HLE has been entrusted by the State of Florida to deliver age appropriate lessons from the Holocaust for grades 5-12 to all 67 school districts.
For more information visit holocaustlearningexperience.org
The mission of the Holocaust Learning Experience (HLE) developed by MorseLife is to educate and transform generations to end antisemitism and combat hate, bigotry and prejudice. The HLE, developed by MorseLife, has been entrusted by the State of Florida to develop, deploy and deliver lessons from the Holocaust, impacting more than 2 million students, grades 5—12, in all 67 school districts. Designed as a turn-key operation through a Learning Management System, the program offers age-appropriate, grade-specific lessons from the Holocaust directly into classrooms across the curriculum. This also fills a critical gap acting as a resource for teachers who have never been trained in Holocaust studies. For more information visit holocaustlearningexperience.org.
