As an extension of the sanctuary and lobby areas designed by Edward Jacobs, the NSHAHS requested that he design a Holocaust memorial for the campus. The faculty requested a work that would provide a place of solemn convocation for various ceremonies as well as being an appropriate response to the magnitude of the tragedy itself. They also asked that a balance be struck with the above considerations and in keeping with the atmosphere and educational mandate of the school.
With this in mind, Jacobs created a work based on a famous piece of Holocaust art produced by a young man the age of the students at NSHA. The sculpture itself is a cast bronze relief based on the original drawing by Petr Ginz. When he saw the moon from his prison in Theresienstadt, perhaps Ginz optimistically dreamed of a time when humankind would be free of the shackles of war and persecution and would turn its focus to science to help advance humanity. Petr’s drawing became world famous on January 16, 2003, when Israeli astronaut Colonel Ilan Ramon soared into space on the space shuttle Columbia with a copy of “Moon Landscape” on board. A child of Holocaust survivors, Colonel Ramon chose to commemorate the Shoah by carrying into space an artifact of it. In consultation with authorities at Yad Vashem, Colonel Ramon chose “Moon Landscape” as it fit Colonel Ramon’s goals as well as those of the space mission itself. Ramon said: “I feel that my journey fulfills the dream of Petr Ginz 58 years on. A dream that is ultimate proof of the greatness of the soul of a boy imprisoned within the ghetto, the walls of which could not conquer his spirit. Ginz’s drawings, stored at Yad Vashem, are a testimony to the triumph of the spirit.”
“Moon Landscape” connects the dream of one Jewish boy who is a symbol of the potential lost in the Holocaust to the journey of one Jewish astronaut who remains a symbol of the Jewish people’s revival.
Petr Ginz was killed in Auschwitz in 1944. Colonel Ilan Ramon died on February 1, 2003, when the space shuttle Columbia broke apart during reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
ServicesInterpretive Planning, Conceptual Design, Content Development, Exhibition DesignLocationLong Island, New YorkYear2009
