NUM193 Should the Jewish community spend millions of dollars of public monies to build Holocaust memorials? Should the death camps and other reminders of Nazi Germany be left standing when their memory causes so much pain to those who experienced the Holocaust firsthand? Both questions require an emphatic yes, from a Jewish point of view. The Talmud (Menachot 43b) says that based on the verse in the last paragraph of the Shema (this verse), only when one sees something will that cause the person to remember. This remembrance will then lead to action. Although this specific concept is mentioned in the Shema regarding the wearing of tzizit (the blue-colored fringe will remind one of the sky, the sky of God, and so forth), the educational use of a visual effect is well-known in secular society and is used in Jewish ritual as well. People remember best by seeing. Although this generation may not need a visual device to remember the Holocaust because it took place so recently, future generations will certainly need Holocaust memorials, museums, or the remnants of the actual sites to help them visualize and remember. In an age where active attempts are made by many groups to forget the Holocaust or even to claim that it did not happen, these visual memorials are necessary to tell the world what really happened.... The Talmud (Megillah 28a) records that when a synagogue was in disrepair, covered with grass, the people were not allowed to repair the damage, since they should suffer when they see a synagogue in ruins. In a different way, when the Jewish people see the remnants of the camps, they are reminded not only of what transpired in those camps, but of the "disrepair" of the Jewish community in Europe, which will never be rebuilt.