Pushing the button
A 23-yr-old Israeli backpacker has become the first person to donate funds to a planned Holocaust memorial in Wellington which will feature 1.5 million buttons collected by local schoolchildren.
Vera Egermayer and Ariel Binenfeld
Ariel’s donation
Haifa-based Ariel Binenfeld paid a visit to the Wellington’s Holocaust Centre of New Zealand where he learned that the button project was still a work in progress. This did not stop the young Israeli from making a contribution to an exhibit yet to be built…his NZ$10 will be the first donation to be banked. Each of the exhibition’s 1.5 million buttons will represent the life of a child lost as a result of the Holocaust.
Vera Egermayer told J-Wire: “With his ten dollars our fundraising has started. We could not tell Ariel exactly where the Memorial will stand or what it will look like or how much it will cost because these questions are still under consideration. Ariel was so taken with the unique character of our memorial and what it means to have it in New Zealand that he was willing to give specifically to this project. Sir Nicholas Winton who organised the legendary Kindertransport facilitating an escape from Nazi Europe for hundreds of Jewish children contributed some of his buttons is a 103 year old Englishman. Ariel is 23. Worlds apart or worlds together?”
Ariel Binenfeld is on a backpacking tour of New Zealand and has experienced the countries best-known walks. His family survived the Holocaust.
Nice to hear some good news.
Moriah College pre-school is doing the same thing, so if any one has buttons to donate please pop them into any one of the four centres.