GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park will soon be gifted the city’s first Holocaust memorial.
On Monday, the park announced it is accepting a major gift from the Jewish Federation of Grand Rapids. The gift is being made possible by a donation from the Pestka Family in memory of their father Henry, the survivors who settled in Western Michigan and the millions of Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
The memorial will be anchored by Ariel Schlesinger’s Ways to Say Goodbye.
“Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park is highly honored and very pleased to receive this significant and meaningful gift to acquire Ariel Schlesinger’s monumental sculpture Ways to Say Goodbye,” said David Hooker, President & CEO of Meijer Gardens.
“The sculpture will be installed in 2022 and dedicated in memory of Henry Pestka and the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. We are deeply grateful for this gift adding such an important work of art to our permanent collection.
According to Meijer Gardens, Ways to Say Goodbye is a 20-foot-tall aluminum cast of a fig tree with shards of glass inserted among the branches. The park hopes to use the piece as an educational tool to address the Holocaust and its legacy.
“As time goes on and memories of the Holocaust fade, it is important to remember the barbarity human beings are capable of,” said Steve Pestka.
“It is equally important to contemplate the strength of the survivors and their ability to continue and rebuild their lives. It is our hope that this work of art will promote an appreciation of our shared humanity and a reminder that hatred and intolerance continue to this day and the consequences of the ultimate dehumanization of human beings.”
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