Memorial Wall Profiles

The Nashville Holocaust Archival Project

Through this new website link, the Nashville Holocaust Memorial Committee is proud to present an additional means by which the community can learn about and honor victims and survivors of the Holocaust.

Local family members of victims and survivors submitted names to be included on the walls of the Nashville Holocaust Memorial. Birth and death sites were sometimes noted, but further information about these individuals was often lacking. In order to remedy this problem, a research project was established so that the stories behind the names incised on the Memorial wall could be gathered before it was too late.

More than fifty family members submitted information or were interviewed for this project, all of whom kindly offered anecdotes and other fragments of memories about their family relatives. Some, who survived the Holocaust, recounted their own stories. On occasion, family lore was supplemented by other types of documentation, such as photographs, passports, letters, and memoirs, now stored at the Jewish community archives. Sometimes, these brief accounts on each individual honored are all that remain about his or her struggle.

The work for this project was directed by Felicia Anchor, the chairwoman of the Nashville Holocaust Memorial Committee. All interviews and research were conducted by Gwynn Thayer from 2008 to 2010. Funding for the project came from a grant from the Jewish Foundation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee and private donors.