Bakersfield Chabad Creating a Holocaust Memorial Out of Six Million Buttons
Cynthia Fischer always had a dream: She wanted to create a Holocaust memorial out of six million buttons she’d collected herself and from others over 10 years. However, she couldn’t quite figure out how to do it.
That all changed in 2020, when Fischer met Rabbi Shmuel Schlanger, director of her local Chabad Jewish Community Center in Bakersfield. Fischer had been sending her grandchild to the Chabad every Sunday to learn in the Hebrew school, which is on an idyllic campus at 6901 Ming Avenue.
“Cynthia loved the look of our place and asked us if we were interested in making her dream a reality,” Rabbi Schlanger told the Journal. “We have a community center that used to be a tennis club, and it’s very pretty. She felt this would be the best place for it. We thought it was a great idea.”
Six million buttons of many colors and shapes and sizes buttons made of metal, wood, cloth, plastic, pearl and shell, plain buttons and buttons with patterns, textured buttons and flat buttons soon will serve as a memorial in a garden setting at Chabad of Bakersfield to honor the lives of every Jewish woman, man and child killed in the Holocaust.
“We are focused on affirming the lives of every one of them,” said Rabbi Shmuel Schlanger, co-director with his wife, Esther, of Chabad of Bakersfield. “We are going to build this memorial to encourage people of all backgrounds to come here and to reflect on how they could counteract evil deeds of the past by replacing them with deeds of kindness, to make the future and the world more beautiful.”
Feb. 20—Inside Chabad of Bakersfield, you'll find lots of buttons — nearly 6 million of them. But they're more than just a feature on a shirt or jacket. Each one represents a Jewish life "ruthlessly uprooted" by Nazis during World War II, explained Rabbi Shmuel Schlanger, director of the Chabad of Bakersfield. And soon they will bring color to such a dark time in history through the Central .