Never Too Late to Remember

The Politics Behind New York City's Holocaust Museum

Author: Rochelle G. Saidel

More than a story of back-room politics, Never Too Late To Remember places New York City's project in the broader framework of Holocaust memorialisation, thereby examining the dynamic between memory, ideology, politics, and representation.

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Why did New York City, the largest centre of Jewish culture and home to more survivors than any other city in the United States, take more than half a century to finalise plans for its Holocaust memorial? Because the process of memorialising any historical event is inevitably political, Rochelle Saidel explains, and she gives a detailed analysis of how various groups within the American Jewish community, local power brokers, real estate developers, and major political players have all influenced the memorial's progress. Never Too Late To Remember traces the history of the numerous attempts to create a Holocaust memorial in New York City that began in 1946–47, and focuses on the present project, initiated by Mayor Edward I. Koch in 1981, which is scheduled to open in 1997. A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, the Museum of Jewish Heritage stands on the shore of the Hudson River, facing the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Saidel is frank in attributing the many false starts and delays to conflicting political agendas, tensions among project organisers, and broken promises and commitments. More than a story of back-room politics, Never Too Late To Remember places New York City's project in the broader framework of Holocaust memorialisation, thereby examining the dynamic between memory, ideology, politics, and representation.

About the Author

Rochelle G. Saidel, a political scientist and journalist, is the author of The Outraged Conscience: Seekers of Justice for Nazi War Criminals in America (1984) and has written extensively and lectured widely on the Holocaust for nearly twenty years. She was awarded the prestigious National Foundation for Jewish Culture Musher Publication Prize in 1994 for her work on Never Too Late To Remember.