More than 150 people gathered in the rain on Sunday, April 19, as a long-stored Holocaust memorial sculpture was unveiled at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County in Glen Cove.
The roughly 8-foot bronze work, Monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, now stands in the center’s garden at the county-owned Welwyn Preserve. Created in 1976 by Polish-born Holocaust survivor and artist Natan Rapoport, the tableau depicts four figures shielding a child while resisting with a menorah, a pistol and Molotov cocktails.
The installation coincided with the anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, when Jewish residents launched a rebellion against Nazi forces during the liquidation of the ghetto. The monthlong resistance, though ultimately crushed, remains the largest Jewish revolt against Nazi Germany during World War II and a defining symbol of courage and dignity.
“It was the greatest act of resistance by Jews during the Holocaust as the Nazis prepared to completely liquidate the Warsaw Ghetto,” said Zachary Graulich, an educator at the museum.
The sculpture has traveled a long path to its current home. Commissioned by the Workers Circle, it stood at the group’s New York City headquarters until 2011, when it was placed in storage during a move. It remained there until Alan Kriegstein, of Huntington, discovered it was being kept about a mile from where he volunteers in Farmingdale and arranged for its transfer to the museum on a 50-year loan.
Kriegstein, whose family knew Rapoport personally, reflected on the artist during the ceremony. He described the sculptor as a “warm, humble and kind soul” with surprisingly soft hands: “I would later realize that those hands perfectly reflected him — gentle in touch, yet capable of immense creative force.”
Rapoport, who fled Poland to the Soviet Union during World War II, later immigrated to Israel and then to New York City in the late 1950s. His work commemorating the uprising can also be found in Warsaw and at Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust museum.
Speakers emphasized the monument’s relevance beyond remembrance. Bali Lerner, the center’s executive director, told attendees the sculpture “stands as a true testament to strength and to resistance — the kind that truly transforms ordinary people into heroes when they rise to defend dignity and humanity.”
Alan Mindel, the center’s chairman, urged vigilance and pride in identity. “Let this memorial be more than stone and bronze. Let it be a promise. We promise, we will not hide, we will not bow our heads, we will not accept a future in which our children are afraid to be who they are,” he said.
Workers Circle CEO Ann Toback framed the sculpture as a call to action. “Remembrance has never been something you observe,” she said. “It’s always been a mandate for action.”
The unveiling also marked the opening of a temporary exhibition highlighting Rapoport’s work and the individuals who participated in the uprising, further grounding the monument in both history and present-day relevance.
