The Children's Holocaust Memorial Exhibition opens at the National Library in Wellington. The exhibition includes interactive displays, portraits of victims and an artwork display featuring 1.5 million buttons, representing the number of Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust.
The everyday button is being used as a symbol in a new memorial to remember the children killed during the Holocaust.
The Children's Holocaust Memorial has opened at the National Library in Wellington and features an art installation containing 1.5 million buttons, representing the 1.5 million children's lives lost in the Holocaust.
The memorial works to remember and honour the children through the installation, stories, videos and photographs.
The idea to use the button as an icon was originally thought of 10 years ago by a former principal of the Moriah Jewish Day School in Wellington. It was in an effort to communicate to her students the enormity of the number of children killed.
Dianne Davis, deputy chair of the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand, said children from the school started collecting buttons.
"It took on a life of its own. We started collecting buttons from all around New Zealand and internationally, former prime ministers have given buttons such as John Key and Helen Clark."
Matthijs Siljee from Massey University's School of Design was tasked with designing the installation.
The 1.5 million buttons weigh about 958kg and are 1.3cu m in size.
Siljee said the buttons are encased in table units that start very small.
Inger Woolf views some of the 1.5 million buttons representing the number of Jewish children who lost their lives in the Holocaust. Photo / Mark Mitchell
"The absurdly large number of buttons that we have here means that those tables have been growing and growing."
The memorial was an emotional reminder for one woman living in New Zealand, who managed to escape the grasp of the Holocaust.
Inge Woolf was 3 at the time of Anschluss, when the Nazis marched into Austria and her hometown of Vienna.
Woolf escaped with her parents and her father who was a Czech citizen.
"If they hadn't been determined to get us out of there and work very hard to get us to England and safety... I would be one of those buttons."
She said it is overwhelming to look at the number of buttons and photographs of the children brought her to tears.
The memorial also wanted to play its part in educating New Zealanders, particularly school children, about what the Holocaust was and what lessons could be learnt from it - like standing up to discrimination.
Chris Harris, national educational director at the Holocaust Centre, said it explored the idea of being an "upstander" rather than a bystander and that students should stand up to prejudice and bullying.
A programme of public events including social justice-themed panel discussions would be running in conjunction with the memorial.
The memorial will be at the National Library to 29 March 2019. After Wellington, it will then travel to the new Public Library in Christchurch and on to Auckland.
