1.5M children died in the Holocaust. See how Bristol Community College is honoring them.

• Bristol Community College has collected 1.5 million buttons, symbolizing the number of Jewish children murdered by the Nazi regime.
• The buttons are on display in the college's art gallery.
• There are plans to make the buttons a permanent memorial at the college.

Some losses are incalculable, because of not only the depth of the tragedy, but the scope of it.

It can be difficult to conceptualize large numbers, especially when those numbers are tied to an atrocity.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, as many as 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust.

How can a tragedy of that nature be represented, or honored?

A moving new art project, years in the making at Bristol Community College, aims to answer that question.

“Bearing Witness: A Sea of Buttons in Memory of the Holocaust’s Youngest Victims,” is a physical representation of that loss, and a personal testament to the young lives that never got to be lived out.

‘Bearing Witness’ brings 1.5 million buttons to Bristol Community College’s Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery

Now on display at the Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery at Bristol Community College’s Fall River campus, 777 Elsbree St., “Bearing Witness” is the culmination of an ambitious project.

“Bearing Witness: A Sea of Buttons in Memory of the Holocaust’s Youngest Victims” showcases 1.5 million buttons, as well as proposals for a permanent memorial.

Each button represents a young life lost.

This exhibition will remain on display in the gallery through April 3. Gallery hours are Monday to Thursday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Friday, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Button-collecting project spans years, and the globe

Collecting these buttons has been a years-long community initiative, with each button “symbolizing a Jewish child murdered during the Holocaust,” a press release from Bristol Community College stated.

This project has been in the works since 2017, when Linell Dean, who was then an administrative assistant at Bristol’s Holocaust and Genocide Center, proposed a button campaign, inspired by an initiative in Australia.

“Unlike past Holocaust remembrance projects that had utilized stamps or paper clips, this effort uniquely focused on buttons — a humble yet powerful symbol of individuality and absence,” the press release said.

After Dean’s departure, the project gained momentum under the leadership of Michael Santos, who was a Providence College intern at the time. Santos expanded the campaign to local schools. His outreach efforts led to the collection of over 500,000 buttons within a single year.

Thousands donated, from individuals, to local businesses and schools, to international contributors.

Following Santos’ tenure, the work was continued by Bristol honors student Corrine LePage, who sustained the campaign during the various setbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As word spread, people from near and far contributed buttons, each with its own history and meaning,” information from Bristol’s Holocaust and Genocide Center, provided by Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery Director Kathleen Hancock, said.

One young person raised a staggering amount of buttons:

“Among the many contributors, 12-year-old Ireland Nordstrom, of Fairhaven, made an extraordinary impact, collecting over 100,000 buttons through her grassroots efforts,” the press release said. Nordstrom designed a flyer and distributed it widely to aid her campaign to raise buttons.

One donor made a gift of 10,000 buttons, “from his late mother’s treasured collection,” according to the Holocaust and Genocide Center.

The Holocaust and Genocide Center wrote that, “Contributions also came from community organizations such as Arbella Insurance Company in Fall River and a school in Tavernier, Florida, which alone collected more than 22,000 buttons.”

A big breakthrough came in the form of a large donation from a button factory, which helped the project reach its 1.5 million-button goal.

“These efforts demonstrated the power of community engagement in transforming an abstract concept into a tangible act of remembrance,” the Holocaust and Genocide Center wrote. “Every button in the collection represents both a lost child and an opportunity to educate future generations about the Holocaust and the importance of preserving historical memory.”

Visitors to “Bearing Witness” are “invited to contemplate the enormity of loss represented by the 1.5 million buttons and engage in discussions about history, memory, and responsibility,” the press release said.

Additional button contributions will be welcomed, as the memorial continues to evolve.

Art with an impact

During the campaign, under the leadership of Professor Marisa Millard, student volunteers in Bristol Community College’s Art Department “played an ongoing role in transforming the collection into a meaningful visual experience,” the press release said. They created “powerful button portraits of Anne Frank and Holocaust survivor Stephen Ross,” the release said, which are now permanently displayed in the Jackson Art Center.

The Frank and Ross portraits were created in the first year of the campaign, and completed in the summer of 2018.

Permanent memorial in the works: Final design chosen

Now that the collection goal has been met, the Holocaust and Genocide Center is working on creating a permanent installation for the buttons.

A committee was convened in the summer of 2024 to establish criteria for the memorial, with an aim toward expressing remembrance, offering education, and fostering community engagement.

In Oct. 2024, the college issued an international call for proposals, asking artists to submit designs for an outdoor installation. There were 23 submissions from US-based and international artists and designers, with the selection committee choosing three finalists.

“Bearing Witness” features models of the three finalists’ designs:

Zach Horn, whose “concept embraces the symbolism of the button — connection, memory, and shared humanity — transforming it into a powerful visual and experiential memorial,” the Holocaust and Genocide Center wrote. 

Søren Nellemann, whose proposal, the Holocaust and Genocide Center said, “presented a compelling interpretation of the button as a symbol of history and connection.”

Josh Zubkoff, whose concept “offered a unique exploration of the button as both a historical artifact and a contemporary emblem of resilience,” the Holocaust and Genocide Center wrote.

Horn’s design was chosen as the winner; the completed work will be installed on campus.

“This project would not have been possible without the dedication of the selection committee, the many individuals who donated buttons, and the unwavering commitment of [Director of the Holocaust and Genocide Center] Ron Weisberger, who never gave up hope that this memorial would find a permanent home,” said Hancock, who was also chair of the selection committee.

Learn more about ‘Bearing Witness’

“In honoring the past, this project carries a vital message into the future — ensuring that the stories of Holocaust victims continue to be told, that lessons of history are not forgotten, and that remembrance remains an active and evolving process,” the press release said.

For more information about the exhibit, and memorial efforts, visit www.bristolcc.edu/gallery.

Further details about the memorial, and a timeline for installation, will be shared in the coming months.