A sculpture of four women and a little girl standing arm in arm, moments before they were murdered by Nazis, will be added to Carolyn & Maurice LeBauer Park in Greensboro in 2023.
The sculpture is titled “She Wouldn’t Take Off Her Boots,” and will be North Carolina’s first women’s Holocaust monument, according to Greensboro.com.
The artist, Victoria Carlin Milstein, shared some insights about why she selected this group as a subject.
“I just couldn’t get over these women. The little girl, she shows the horror that is going to happen,” Milstein told Greensboro.com. “They were marched to the beaches and massacred.”
Milstein’s memorial sculpture was based on a 1941 photograph by a Nazi photographer. She researched history to learn more about the women pictured.
“Their journey was different because they had the children,” she said. “They had a specific cruelty to what happened to them … The fact that this incredible city of Greensboro accepted this, to put in their premiere park, in Carolyn’s Garden — it just says who we are.”
Milstein said America’s approach to art has changed recently. “Monuments are coming down, but we are rising up pieces of artwork — public art — that tell us who we are as a community and a society,” she said.
The sculpture will be featured in downtown Greensboro’s LeBauer Park, which is located at 208 N. Davie St.
