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Friday June 29, 2007

Shoah memorial on track — literally — at Sonoma State

by joe eskenazi
staff writer

Life’s a grind these days for Jann Nunn. Not that this is a bad thing.

The Sonoma State University art professor has already spent hundreds of hours toiling in front of heavy industrial machines of the sort that, combined with loose-fitting clothing, spawn gory shop teachers’ stories.

So far, Nunn has avoided any industrial accidents. And that’s good, because she has hundreds of hours to go.

The Oakland resident is cutting and grinding more than 5,000 individual pieces of glass that she will assemble into a jagged, luminous tower for a Holocaust and genocide memorial on the Sonoma State campus. College officials believe the memorial will be the first in the North Bay, which is somewhat surprising considering the region’s relatively large survivor population.

“There are a number of Holocaust survivors here who are aging,” said Kate McClintock, the director of the school’s alumni association. “The feeling was, we should get this going.”

Nunn’s installation will inhabit a select bit of campus near a large man-made lake. Students and faculty often use the serene setting for lunch or relaxation. When the massive Green Music Center — future home of the Santa Rosa Symphony — is completed several years down the road, foot traffic will increase.

The concept of a Shoah monument on campus was hatched by Elaine Leeder, the school’s dean of social sciences. Although scores of Leeder’s Jewish relatives were slaughtered in Lithuania, there is no monument — apart from one in the family’s small town — to honor them. When she asked around, she found that other people felt the same way about their family histories. She contacted local Armenians, Rwandans, Roma and Cambodians, and gave Nunn first crack at the design.

Nunn’s monument may be the first Holocaust memorial to make use of a material donation from Union Pacific. A pair of 40-foot-long railroad tracks run side-by-side, growing closer until they stand inches apart. At the end of the tracks stands the 10-foot-high light tower, which rests on a pedestal bearing a genocide-related quote. The quote has yet to be selected.

The ongoing nature of genocide is symbolized by the tracks growing closer but never touching; the ethereal, illuminated tower represents a better tomorrow. At one point, the tracks cross a footpath. This is another intentional design by Nunn: pedestrians will sidestep the genocide memorial the same way we do by not letting distant genocides disrupt our daily lives.

Bricks bearing the names of slaughtered relatives or individuals who saved genocide victims are being auctioned off to raise funds for the roughly $60,000 sculpture. Leeder has already purchased a brick for her relatives, the Schneersons (her father and the late Lubavitcher Rebbe were cousins).

Nunn believes she will complete the project in early 2008.

For more information on the memorial, or to purchase a brick, contact Kate McClintock at (707) 664-2693.

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