Holocaust memorial opened in Portland, Oregon

Following years of often contentious preparation, the city of Portland has unveiled a memorial honoring Holocaust survivors living in the US states of Oregon and Washington. The Oregon Holocaust Memorial was opened in a quiet corner of the city's Washington Park. It is also dedicated to the local survivors' friends and relatives who were killed by the Nazis. Visitors first see a replica of a European town square, strewn with cast bronze artifacts representing what was left behind – a tattered teddy bear, a pair of broken glasses. A path of cobblestones leads to a stone wall bearing quotations from interviews with regional Holocaust survivors on one side, and the names of their lost relatives on the other. There is also a vault filled with soil from the Nazi's six major extermination camps. In 1995, Portland designated the site of the memorial. At first, some people in the neighborhood opposed the idea, worried it would increase traffic and parking problems.