Memorial Gallery
WORLD WAR II - EUROPE
MONUMENT
1941-1945

 
    WORLD WAR II EUROPE MONUMENT — 1941-1945
OMRI AMRANY - SCULPTOR

D-DAY…The breaking of the Nazi 'Atlantic Wall'… was led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme allied commander.  At .15hrs 82nd and 101st airborne parachuted from DC3 aircraft. Following naval/air bombardment, 4th infantry at 6.30hrs assaulted Utah Beach-liberating Ste-mere Eglise.  Also at 6.30hrs (4.30 by rangers), Omaha Beach was assaulted by 1st, 29th, and 116th infantry regiment. With rangers 2nd battalion at 5th and La Pointe Du Hoc, they are remembered for sacrificial heroism.

The Europe Monument is led with a lone infantryman on Omaha Beach. A bronze ‘radioman' calls to all the others… behind a steel 'hedgehog'… he faces 'the dragon's teeth'.  

The World War II Monument is the topographic peak of the Community Veterans Memorial.

  

   
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It expresses new directions from Europe. The split steel beams represent destruction from World War I continued in Europe, to the Pacific - pointing to Korea and Vietnam. The circular motifs symbolize human enforcement on nature or waves of the sea. Designs are based on modern concepts of repetition to infinity.

Triangular granite slabs host laser-etched photos … moments on Omaha Beach, horrific destruction at Monte Cassino, a B-24 Liberator, and Bastogne in the snowy Ardennes. From concentration camps, images remind us of the terrible 'Holocaust'. 

With time's perspective, what new or old cry might our 'radioman' call out?  

 

  
  SOURCES:
Interview with Omri Amrany
“D-Day and the Battle of Normandy” Editions OREP, 1998, Colonel Gerard Legout
“Cassino” the Hollow Victory, John Ellis, McGraw-Hill, 1984
“Nuts!” The Battle of the Bulge, Goldstein, Dillon and Wenger, Brassey's, Washington, 1994
U. S. Holocaust Museum, Photo Library, Washington D. C.
VFW National Magazine Photo Archives, Kansas City, Missouri
“Images of War” -  Robert Capa Photos of D-Day
 
     
 

 

  
 

All monument descriptions in the Memorial Gallery are written by Kathleen Van Ella.

  
 

Would you like to see additional pictures of work on the Memorial, click here. 

  
     

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