This weekend, close to 20 senior architectural students from Yale University visited the site of the proposed Atlantic City Boardwalk Holocaust Memorial for the purpose of getting a design-sense of the memorial’s relationship to the Boardwalk.

The students will be entering the international design competition that will eventually produce what its planners envision as an inspiring Holocaust memorial.

“The (Yale) studio has entered international competitions each year, and we always travel to the site and meet with the competition organizers and conduct research,” said Professor Thomas Zook, the group leader. “Last year we went to Mexico City and the year before to Austin, Texas. We are careful to never interact with a member of the competition jury. I assume entries are anonymous also, so there is no favoritism.”

The Atlantic City Boardwalk Holocaust Memorial, Inc. committee is currently sponsoring an anonymous, international two-stage design competition that will create an appropriate and inspiring Memorial to the Holocaust and genocide in general on the ocean side site donated by the city of Atlantic City.

Rabbi Gordon Geller, president of Atlantic City Boardwalk Holocaust Memorial, Inc., was quoted by NBC40 as stating that the memorial would be a legacy vehicle that would give a “message of common humanity, and never again, to unprecedented multitudes for generations to come.”

Students met with members of the memorial organization at the Milton and Betty Katz JCC of Margate where they interacted with those who attended the community forum.

Final design submissions are due by March 15, and will be judged by a world-class jury that includes Daniel Liebeskind, the master planner commissioned to rebuild the World Trade Center site in New York City. Several selected designs will be placed on public display through the summer.