Holocaust memorial to be built in Big Ugly, West Virginia
Jan 30 (AP) - In an effort to increase tourism, attract Federal
money and possible grants from Jewish groups, the town of Big
Ugly, West Virginia has decided to erect a Holocaust memorial in
honor of the six million Jews that died under the reign of the
Nazis in World War II.
"It's good economic sense. We saw that towns that put these
things up had a better chance of getting money coming their
way," said Bob Coberly, unofficial town leader of this
unincorporated area in Lincoln County known for coal-mining, "of
course, what happened to this people was just awful too.
Terrible."
Big Ugly has no history of Jewish settlement, but that's not
what matters to Coberly.
"Big Ugly needs some economic revitalization. We thought of a
skating rink or a maybe a new theater. Those don't attract the
kind of outside attention that a Holocaust memorial does. We're
hoping to get some funding from Israel and Germany out of this",
continues Coberly. But the memorial Coberly plans for Big Ugly
will be different. He wants to inscribe the memorial with six
million names at five dollars a name.
"We could get sponsors. Churches and synagogues could donate
money to memorialize the six million victims", explains Coberly,
"This way, we could maybe get to build the new medical center
that we need."
Work on the memorial design is still in the planning stages.
Coberly says they're working with Yad Vashem in Israel to
collect all six million names.