The Importance Of 'Remembrance' By Primo Levi

Remembrance is a complex and difficult journey; it involves coming to terms with certain, more disturbing, aspects of things you are remembering. Primo Levi's text aims to highlight not only the dehumanization and suffering inflicted on the Jewish people but also their protest and resilience. Levi makes it clear that while we remember the atrocities for what they are, we must not forget the people who not only survived but resisted them. One of the acts of resilience he discusses quite often is the practice of individuality and the small acts of humanity that come with it. In Levi's book, he discusses the dehumanization and lack of free will in Auschwitz, saying, “that precisely because the Lager was a great machine to reduce us to beasts,

The power in staying an individual, and not becoming “a beast” Levi states, is the one thing they have control over. This individuality is the basis of being civilized and, in many ways, being human, which Levi stresses the importance of in order to survive. We want to include themes in our memorial based on how and what Levi believed and wrote about in his book. Those themes include individuality and, more broadly, resistance and respectful and appropriate ways of mourning the tragedy of the Holocaust. The last major theme of our memorial touched on by Levi is the impact and importance of hope on people in the concentration camps, something we also would like to capture in our

We recognize the tragedy of their deaths and their continued hope in others now, those who still suffer from generational trauma or people just coming to remember those who were killed. Stones were chosen as the material because of a Jewish tradition: stones are placed on the grave to keep their soul in this world, and stones last forever, unlike flowers. The tunnel leads into a large glass room where the light shines in, contributing to the reflective and hopeful atmosphere of the space. The stained glass above the viewer splits apart and reflects different colors, symbolizing the individuality of each Jewish person and how everybody experiences trauma through different lenses and its effect on one's life. This hope and difference in experiences are upheld by steel, which is used as a strong metal, showing the resilience and strength of hope and its