Six million. It is a number deeply embedded in Jewish memory. A number we know, teach and repeat. And yet its scale is so enormous that it can be almost impossible to comprehend. Herzlia alumna (MY 1988), Liora Blum, who made aliyah, is working to change that.
Liora’s Six Million Project is an ambitious artistic initiative seeking to visually represent the six million Jewish lives lost in the Holocaust, transforming an overwhelming statistic into something tangible, personal and profoundly human.
As the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Liora grew up with the number “six million”, but wanted to find a way to restore individuality to those represented by it. Through thousands upon thousands of individually coloured blocks, the project is slowly building a visual memorial in which every contribution represents lives that were lived, families that existed and people who mattered.
Earlier this year, Herzlia staff were given the opportunity to become part of that work at our first professional development day of the year, which was centred on the theme of “Connection” and the idea that so much of what holds a school community together comes from the relationships we build: with one another, with our pupils and families, with Jewish life and learning, with community, and with our shared history.
It was therefore especially meaningful that the day began with Liora and the Six Million Project.
Staff members each coloured individual sections which were later brought together into a vibrant completed artwork. Their pages will ultimately become part of the larger Six Million Project exhibition, alongside contributions from Jewish communities and individuals around the world.
There was another very special connection too. Liora’s own engagement with Holocaust education began during her years at Herzlia, particularly through the mentorship of former Herzlia educator Jill Joubert and her experiences on Ulpan with Geoff Cohen.
Years later, she returned to Herzlia, this time bringing a project of her own that asks others to connect more deeply with that same history. It’s a beautiful full-circle Herzlia story and it is also much bigger than Herzlia.
At a time when Holocaust distortion, denial and a growing distance from living memory make education and remembrance increasingly important, projects such as this find new ways to help people understand something that should never become simply a paragraph in a history book or an unimaginable statistic.
The Six Million Project asks us to look again and to remember that behind the number were six million individuals, six million stories and six million lives.
We are incredibly proud that a Herzlia alumna is helping communities around the world make that connection and honoured that our own staff could contribute a small part to such a powerful and important work of remembrance.
