A large crowd gathered Sunday, January 30, for the re-introduction ceremony of the Daffodil Garden Memorial next to the children’s playground in the downtown Blue Ridge city park.
Blue Ridge Street Department Supervisor Tony Byrd put in raised garden beds to protect the bulbs from too much water and fresh mulch and dirt in preparation for the ceremony. The stone plaque about the Daffodil Project and the 1.5 million children who were murdered during the Holocaust was also moved to a more prominent spot in the garden.
But according to Daffodil Garden facilitator Mike Weinroth, these are not the only updates planned for the garden. A knee wall and benches for contemplation are also in the works.
Everyone who attended the event was given a program with a biography and a picture of a child who perished in the Holocaust and was invited to plant a bulb in their memory and think of the child’s unmet potential.
“Those daffodil bulbs represent life because no matter how bitter this winter has been, they will pop up with beautiful yellow flowers,” Weinroth said. “Their memory has not been snuffed out.”
Charlie Chasen, of the Jewish Congregation of Blue Ridge (JCBR), pointed out that these Jewish children were unable to be buried in the Jewish tradition. “We are symbolically doing that for them,” Chasen said. In Jewish tradition, honoring the body of the deceased is one of the most selfless acts someone can do to another, as “it is a deed that cannot be repaid.”
The Daffodil Project seeks to build a “Living Holocaust Memorial” by planting 1.5 million daffodils around the world. The yellow, six petal flower was chosen due to its likeness to the yellow star that the Jewish people were forced to wear.
The Blue Ridge Daffodil Garden was the first of seven along Highway 515.