Although I have studied the annals of World War II and the horrors of the Hitler regime, nothing I read prepared me for a first-hand encounter at the Terezin Concentration Camp. Greeted by one of the infamous arches citing the German slogan, Arbeit Macht Frei (Work sets you free), I knew this day would be unlike any other.

Once a beautiful resort town in the Austrian Empire, Terezin is now a hauntingly austere reminder of Hitler’s Final solution. Begun in 1941 as a holding camp and propaganda base, Terezin became home to 140,000 Jewish prisoners. Of that number, 33,000 human beings never left Terezin succumbing to brutal beatings, starvation, and disease. The remaining prisoners were transported to the extermination camps of Auschwitz.

This sculpture is meant to be a memorial to those lives claimed by one of history’s darkest chapters. The bronze stones atop the sculpture represent symbolic stones often seen on Jewish gravesites.

Although the sculpture is a consummate piece, my vision is to replicate this piece as a large-scale fountain portraying the tears of all lost souls.