Buttons come in different sizes, textures, colors, and shapes. Cynthia Fischer, executive director of the CA Holocaust Education and Resource Center, has been collecting buttons for more than a decade to memorialize the victims of the Holocaust.

Each button represents a single victim of the Holocaust. Each victim was an individual, a father, a mother, a daughter, a baby, a big brother, a little sister, a tailor, a writer, a student. Each unique in its own way. Just like the individuality of each button in a button jar.

Chabad of Bakersfield was honored to be gifted these buttons to create and build the first Holocaust Memorial in the Central Valley of California. We have created a memorial using six million buttons along a serene and beautiful walkway in the back of the Chabad Jewish Community Center. The memorial is a place to remember those that were lost and in addition; a place to inspire us to do better, be kinder, and help turn this world into the garden G‑d intended it to be.