The Holocaust Memorial

This memorial was created to provide an opportunity to commemorate the National Holocaust Memorial Day held annually in this country. Redditch for some years has worked in partnership across a wide variety of faith groups to raise awareness of the holocaust phenomenum producing debate between a diverse range of groups including the Church of England, the Borough Council, the Pagan Society and various other groups of religious denomination.

In 2002 all local schools were invited to submit designs for a suitable piece of artwork for a Holocaust Memorial, and the winner was Chase Lloyd, a student at Kingsley College. After a quite lengthy debate and exploration about a suitable and practical location the location chosen was the southern end of Church Green, and the design was modified for the site and executed by the artist Andy Decomyn from Birmingham.

The memorial is constructed around a mild steel frame, which provides reinforcement to the concrete casting into which the design – a cut-out silhouette of a kneeling soldier taking the hand of a small child – has been modelled.  It is stark and unornamented, with a coarse, uneven, off-white surface, the two intentional voids conveying the weight of the events memorialised.  It was unveiled on Holocaust Memorial Day in 2