Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs

Nathan Rapoport, born in 1911 and active first in Poland, built an artistic career that continued after he fled the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, worked briefly in a labor camp in Russian-controlled territory, later worked as an artist there, and immigrated to the United States in 1950. The Holocaust became a frequent subject of his work, and his sculptures stand in Poland, Israel, New York City, and elsewhere. His Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs, a bronze work created in 1964, became the first public Holocaust memorial in the United States. A group of civic leaders and Holocaust survivors, including Dalck Ferth, Harold Greenspan, Abram Schnaper, Joseph Smukler, and the Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Philadelphia, commissioned it, and together with the Association of Jewish New Americans and the Federation of Jewish Agencies of Greater Philadelphia, presented it to the City of Philadelphia on April 26, 1964. In 2018, the memorial was enhanced by a memorial plaza built by the Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania · United States