Day 16: "Then they came for me..."

I'm Adam Sell and I have two months left before I leave Boston. My challenge? Do something in the city every day. Have ideas for my adventure? Send me an email.

There are and will be some days throughout this project on which prior commitments make it impossible for me to get out and visit or do anything. For these days, I have set out to visit the site for that day ahead of time. This is the first such entry — I completed it on July 11.

The title to this post refers to a famous quote by pastor Martin Niemöller that marks one end of the New England Holocaust Memorial. The large stone tablet bears the poem he wrote about the systematic removal of particular social classes by the Nazis during World War II.

The Memorial is one of those parts of the city that so many people have seen, walked past, and recognize, but don't stop to examine. After 13 years, the six glass towers have become a fixture, one that's not forgotten, but not necessarily remembered. And while part of this project's aim is to explore the hidden treasures of Boston that are "fun" to investigate, I won't allow this hidden-in-plain-sight memorial to pass through the proverbial cracks.

There are six towers, each bearing the name of one of the death camps used during the War. From underneath each tower, white smoke gently wafts up, creating an uncomfortable warmth and presence around the ankles. The glass of each tower is engraved with the identification numbers of the prisoners that were killed. The numbers, the simple volume of numbers on every side, on every panel, on each tower, stretched from the ground several stories high. It's not just imposing, it's all but physically overwhelming.

Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, they told us in grade school. But that total — six million — doesn't mean anything. You can count to six on your fingers. This memorial does something that no movie, no book could ever accomplish: it's a tangible representation of that figure. Each tower's collection of numbers is overpowering, but every step in the slow procession through the memorial becomes even more so.

There will be many days in the remainder of this project during which I walk past this part of the city. But on none of them will I fail to consider it, as I might have before.