Nevil Hunt, Ottawa East News
September 28, 2017
Ottawa is now home to a monument destined to become a regular stop on any visitor’s tour of the capital.
The National Holocaust Monument was inaugurated on Sept. 27 by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and members of Canada’s Jewish community.
“We must recommit ourselves every day, to not only not repeat (the Holocaust), but remembering,” Trudeau said to an audience gathered in the nearby Canadian War Museum.
The monument honours the victims and survivors of the Holocaust – the mass extermination of over six million Jews and millions of other victims at the hands of the Nazi regime.
The war museum played host due to inclement weather at the outdoor monument.
The monument is now open to the public at the corner of Wellington and Booth streets. The design of the monument – entitled Landscape of Loss, Memory and Survival – may at first appear haphazard, but when viewed from above forms a Star of David.
Inside the walls are paintings and interpretive panels, as well as space for quiet contemplation. One stairway provides visitors with a framed view of the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill.
The day included emotional speeches, none more so than Eva Kuper’s story of escape from the Nazi death camps.