Jerry and Rochelle Slivka Holocaust Memorial
On August 10, 2003, over 300 people gathered at Temple Beth El to commemorate the first public Holocaust memorial in Maine. Rochelle and Jerry were founding members of the Maine Holocaust Human Rights Center.
Jerry Slivka, who was born in Ukraine in 1915, evacuated to Germany during WWI and a life he never expected ensued, including settling in Portland, Maine. Communist rule did not allow monuments to the Jews who were killed during the Holocaust, but Jerry persevered, finally establish a Holocaust monument, the first in Maine and created by board member and longtime HHRC friend Robert Katz.
The Jerry and Rochelle Slivka Holocaust Memorial was commissioned by the Slivkas in memory of their family members and the 6 million Jews exterminated during World War II. The memorial, designed by artist, sculptor and U Maine Professor of Art Robert Katz in 2003, consists of an unpreserved square steel column with bronze plaques, a large mounted horizontal engraved granite stone and a matching granite bench, all mounted upon brick pavers. The bench is dedicated to Rochelle & Jerry Slivka “For Their Dedication to Holocaust Education.” On either side of the memorial are shrub and flower beds, the whole surrounded by grass and mature trees. In the beds are six dogwoods, to commemorate the six million killed. In the spring they bloom yellow, which commemorates the yellow start the Nazis forced all Jews to wear. It faces east toward Jerusalem and features six dogwood trees, in memory of the 6 million murdered, that bloom yellow to commemorate the yellow stars that Nazis forced Jews to wear. On the day of the dedication, they placed a bronze box in a chamber behind the star that contains three vessels filled with earth from Jerusalem, Auschwitz and soil from Jerry’s home in Ukraine. Mr. Katz then welded the chamber closed for eternity.
Rochelle passed away in 2005 while Jerry died on January 10, 2013 at the age of 97. To hear an audio interviews with both of them, visit the oral history section of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Interview with Rochelle Blackman Slivka. Interview with Jerry Slivka.