THE CHILDREN'S HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL
"The Button Project"
The Nazis and their collaborators killed some 1.5 million Jewish children during the Holocaust, as well as the unaccounted thousands of murdered Romani children, children with physical and mental disabilities living in institutions, Polish children and children residing in the occupied Soviet Union.
The Children's Holocaust Memorial is designed to remember these children.
The Children's Holocaust Memorial is designed to remember these children.
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In 2008, Principal Justine Hitchcock of Wellington’s Moriah Jewish Day School wanted to help her young students grasp the scale of 1.5 million children murdered in the Holocaust. She started a project for them to collect 1.5 million buttons—one for each murdered child.
The students, all under 12, managed the project themselves.
The students, all under 12, managed the project themselves.
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Buttons were collected, cleaned and counted by the children over a two-year period - each button representing a child that perished during the Holocaust.
By reaching into the past to embrace those who were lost, the children wanted to ensure the persistence of memory. “We wanted to make sure they were not forgotten,” Liza, a Moriah pupil explained in 2012.
Some of the buttons collected at the National Army Museum
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Why Buttons?
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Throughout the project the students were engaged in educational opportunities. Nearly every area of the New Zealand curriculum was involved, with Holocaust education being integrated into Social Sciences, English, Mathematics, Sciences, Technology and the Arts.
In the two and a half years it took to collect the buttons, the students’ role changed from learners to teachers, as they began to host and present to other schools, across the country, who were inspired by their project.
Their dedication to the project soon garnered support and interest from multiple sectors of the community. Along with numerous print media stories, the project featured as a news item on Television New Zealand in 2008 and 2010, and the children were interviewed on Radio New Zealand’s Nine to Noon programme in 2009. One of the highlights of the national attention given to the project was a visit by Prime Minister John Key in August 2009.
Most poignant was the attention the project received both nationally and internationally by family members of Holocaust victims, wishing to support and contribute to the button collection. The students at one point were receiving weekly packages of buttons, often accompanied by the stories of Holocaust victims and survivors, letters of support and photographs.
The project evolved into a story of collective remembrance.
In the two and a half years it took to collect the buttons, the students’ role changed from learners to teachers, as they began to host and present to other schools, across the country, who were inspired by their project.
Their dedication to the project soon garnered support and interest from multiple sectors of the community. Along with numerous print media stories, the project featured as a news item on Television New Zealand in 2008 and 2010, and the children were interviewed on Radio New Zealand’s Nine to Noon programme in 2009. One of the highlights of the national attention given to the project was a visit by Prime Minister John Key in August 2009.
Most poignant was the attention the project received both nationally and internationally by family members of Holocaust victims, wishing to support and contribute to the button collection. The students at one point were receiving weekly packages of buttons, often accompanied by the stories of Holocaust victims and survivors, letters of support and photographs.
The project evolved into a story of collective remembrance.
Former Moriah school pupil, Benya Klaupaukh, recalls his time as a founding student of Moriah's button project
“My primary school was very small, with only 20 pupils. At my school we were learning about the Holocaust and one fact we came across was that 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered. Our principal wanted to make me and my fellow students understand the magnitude of this number, so we began our project, New Zealand Children’s Holocaust Memorial, collecting 1.5 million buttons, one for each child that perished in the Holocaust. So, 20 children, no older than 12 years old were supposed to collect and count 1.5 million buttons. This even to me, looking back, sounds completely ridiculous, that’s 50,000 buttons per student. However crazy we thought this idea was, we never gave up, we never stopped making posters, we never stopped telling people about our ‘ambitious’ project, and we never stopped counting the buttons that were pouring in. “
“My primary school was very small, with only 20 pupils. At my school we were learning about the Holocaust and one fact we came across was that 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered. Our principal wanted to make me and my fellow students understand the magnitude of this number, so we began our project, New Zealand Children’s Holocaust Memorial, collecting 1.5 million buttons, one for each child that perished in the Holocaust. So, 20 children, no older than 12 years old were supposed to collect and count 1.5 million buttons. This even to me, looking back, sounds completely ridiculous, that’s 50,000 buttons per student. However crazy we thought this idea was, we never gave up, we never stopped making posters, we never stopped telling people about our ‘ambitious’ project, and we never stopped counting the buttons that were pouring in. “
A Memorial and the Project Supporters
In 2010 the collection was completed with the counting of the 1,500,000th button. By this stage the students had already planned the next phase of their project, which was to ensure the collection was used as both a memorial and a catalyst for education.
Designs for a memorial were proposed and the project moved into a fundraising phase, with patrons, British humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton and acclaimed New Zealand author Dame Joy Cowley. Both Sir Nicholas and Dame Joy donated buttons to the Children's Holocaust Memorial.
Other notable supporters included:
The Button Project featured in a 2012 edition of the New Zealand School Journal, and was used as an illustration for National Standards in Year 7 reading.
In 2010 the collection was completed with the counting of the 1,500,000th button. By this stage the students had already planned the next phase of their project, which was to ensure the collection was used as both a memorial and a catalyst for education.
Designs for a memorial were proposed and the project moved into a fundraising phase, with patrons, British humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton and acclaimed New Zealand author Dame Joy Cowley. Both Sir Nicholas and Dame Joy donated buttons to the Children's Holocaust Memorial.
Other notable supporters included:
- Czech-Israeli painter Chava Pressburger whose brother Petr Ginz, died in Auschwitz.
- French historian, Serge Klarsfeld, who retrieved photos of over 4,000 of the 11,400 French Jewish children murdered by the Nazis. He created a paper memorial for them in the form of a photo gallery located in the Memorial of the Shoah in Paris.
- Dagmar Liblova, a Czech survivor of Auschwitz donated 4 buttons for her family members to symbolise the 15,000 Czech Jewish children who perished. She was decorated for her lifetime service to keeping the memory alive through teaching, writing and presiding over survivor organisation, the Terezin Initiative.
- Former New Zealand Prime Minister, Rt. Hon John Key.
- Former Wellington City Council Mayor, Celia Wade-Brown.
The Button Project featured in a 2012 edition of the New Zealand School Journal, and was used as an illustration for National Standards in Year 7 reading.
 Sir Nicholas Winton, with Holocaust survivor, Vera Egermayer MNZM
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Dame Joy Cowley, Patron of the Children's Holocaust Memorial
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The Memorial design that was selected from competition entries, was entitled ‘Bewilderment’. It was a cube-like building housing a maze with walls filled with buttons and a central candle sculpture.
Unfortunately, this design was not feasible and a site could not be secured.
Unfortunately, this design was not feasible and a site could not be secured.
When Moriah School closed in December 2012, the button collection and plans for a Memorial were entrusted to the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand to continue the project, to create a memorial to honour both the intent and dedication of the children who initiated the button collection and the 1.5 million child victims the collection represents.
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The Memorial
Matthijs Siljee
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In 2017, a Committee was formed to ensure that the Memorial would be realised and the children’s efforts brought to fruition. This Committee included ex-Moriah school pupils, child survivors of the Holocaust including the Centre's Founding Director, Inge Woolf, staff, and the Board Chair.
A new design concept by the Assistant Head of the Massey School of Design, Matthijs Siljee captured the original intention of representing each child and conveying the unimaginable scale of 1.5 million lives. The buttons came out of storage and were prepared for installation into the new design. A dedicated interfaith group of volunteers, along with others, meticulously cleaned the buttons. 
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Rather than a permanent installation in Wellington, the Memorial was designed to travel and be accessible to as many people as possible.
The Memorial would begin with a small box on wheels containing a single light (this was adapted to instead contain a mirror, reflecting the individual viewer); the next box, contains a single button denoting a single child, a single life. As the boxes grow in size, each unit contains more buttons - representing a family, a class, a school, a city – and each grows in height of container and number of buttons. The tallest unit containing buttons deliberately towers over viewers, enabling them to reflect on the scale of the Holocaust and the 1.5 million innocent murdered children.
There is nearly one metric tonne of buttons with a volume of 1.26 cubic metres laid within the tables which are mounted on plastic wheels wedged to welded steel legs. The industrial metal of the cabinets reflects the Nazi bureaucratic machine and the Holocaust’s industrialised death camps. The red wheels echo those of a child’s toy wagon.
When understood as a whole, the project conveys a powerful, poignant, and disturbing message - one of loss that is simply unfathomable.
The Memorial would begin with a small box on wheels containing a single light (this was adapted to instead contain a mirror, reflecting the individual viewer); the next box, contains a single button denoting a single child, a single life. As the boxes grow in size, each unit contains more buttons - representing a family, a class, a school, a city – and each grows in height of container and number of buttons. The tallest unit containing buttons deliberately towers over viewers, enabling them to reflect on the scale of the Holocaust and the 1.5 million innocent murdered children.
There is nearly one metric tonne of buttons with a volume of 1.26 cubic metres laid within the tables which are mounted on plastic wheels wedged to welded steel legs. The industrial metal of the cabinets reflects the Nazi bureaucratic machine and the Holocaust’s industrialised death camps. The red wheels echo those of a child’s toy wagon.
When understood as a whole, the project conveys a powerful, poignant, and disturbing message - one of loss that is simply unfathomable.
The Children’s Holocaust Memorial was officially launched at the National Library of New Zealand
in Wellington on 15 November, 2018.
in Wellington on 15 November, 2018.
'Buttons in memorial art installation a poignant symbol of children lost in the Holocaust'
New Zealand Herald, By Emme Mckay, 16 Nov, 2018
New Zealand Herald, By Emme Mckay, 16 Nov, 2018
Inge Woolf views some of the 1.5 million buttons in the Memorial
Photo: Mark Mitchell |
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For details on the educational resources of the Memorial please go to Children's Holocaust Memorial Educational Resources.
To arrange for the Memorial at your location, please email: [email protected]
To arrange for the Memorial at your location, please email: [email protected]
The Children's Holocaust Memorial in the News
