Results tagged “holocaustmemorialpark”

Mayor Bloomberg has dipped his oar into the hubbub over whether a Holocaust memorial in Brooklyn should honor non-Jewish victims of Nazi atrocities. Yesterday Assemblyman Dov Hikind held a protest at the memorial in Sheepshead Bay to protest the Parks Department's plans to commemorate all Nazi victims, including the disabled, homosexuals, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses and political prisoners. Hikind deems the Holocaust "a uniquely Jewish event" and says "these people are not in the same category as Jewish people with regards to the Holocaust." But yesterday Bloomberg backed the expanded memorial, calling it appropriate because "we don't value one group more than any other." (He also noted that the memorial is outside Hikind's district and that the local Assemblyman, Steve Cymbrowitz, approved the changes.) When informed of Bloomberg's comment, Hikind promptly turned the debate into a Holocaust pissing contest, telling the Post, "I don't know how many people in his family died in the gas chambers. My grandparents, my uncles, my aunts [did]." Your move, Bloomberg!

A group of politicians and activists gathered at the city-owned Holocaust Memorial Park in Sheepshead Bay to protest the Parks Department's plans to make additions to the memorial to more prominently commemorate other groups killed under the Nazi regime on top of the Jewish victims currently being honored there now.