Fairfield University and the Fairfield University Art Museum will receive a bronze Holocaust memorial sculpture in 2026, a gift intended to honor victims of Nazi persecution while serving as a lasting call to confront injustice and promote peace.
The work, titled She Wouldn’t Take Off Her Boots, commemorates five Jewish women who were murdered during the Holocaust after acts of defiance in the face of certain death. Created by artist Victoria Milstein, the sculpture will be installed among the university’s outdoor art collection and accompanied by an endowment to ensure its long-term care.
“The museum is delighted to accept this monument and to have it take its place among our outdoor sculptures on campus,” said Carey Mack Weber, the museum’s Frank and Clara Meditz executive director. “We are looking forward to sharing the educational opportunities this artwork brings with all of our communities — on campus, across Connecticut, and beyond.”
The sculpture depicts a bronze camera facing five women rendered in metal, symbolizing the Nazi photographer who documented their final moments. The memorial is based on events that occurred in December 1941 near Liepāja, Latvia, when German and Latvian forces killed 2,749 Jews — most of them women and children — over three days on the beach at Šķēde.
According to Shoah Memorial Fairfield, Connecticut, the nonprofit organization donating the sculpture, one of the women, Frume Purve, refused to remove her boots before her execution, an act remembered as a quiet yet powerful expression of dignity and resistance. Four others — Sorella Epstein, Roza Epstein, Mia-Malka Epstein and Emma Epstein — are also honored in the work. A Nazi photograph of the scene, preserved by a Jewish worker who risked his life to make a copy, served as the basis for the sculpture.
The memorial was first installed in LeBauer Park in Greensboro, North Carolina, in April 2023. Fairfield native Paul Burger encountered the work there and worked to bring it to Connecticut, leading to the formation of Shoah Memorial Fairfield, Connecticut, and Milstein’s agreement to create a second iteration of the sculpture for Fairfield University.
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“Witnessing how we’ve become numbed to relentless violence — school shootings, political assassinations and terrorist attacks — this monument urges us to retain our humane sensibilities,” said Philip Eliasoph, special assistant to the president for arts and culture. “Through her harrowing artistic vision, Victoria Milstein forces our confrontation with unspeakable evil.”
Milstein said the memorial is intended to be a space for reflection and education.
“The monument will be a sacred space for reflection and meditation and enable all visitors to gather together in unity against oppression and persecution,” she said. “Through the voice of the women in the sculpture, Fairfield University will articulate its commitment to fight all forms of hatred, bigotry and bias.”
University officials said the sculpture aligns with Fairfield’s mission to foster interreligious dialogue and compassionate engagement with difficult history. Educational programming connected to the memorial will include a curriculum for middle and high school students, a self-guided tour and a full-length documentary film.
As Fairfield University’s outdoor sculpture collection continues to grow, Eliasoph said the memorial reflects the institution’s commitment to pairing faith with a broader message of shared humanity.
“Our teaching seeks to animate the spirit of our enduring motto, Per Fidem Ad Plenam Veritatem — Through Faith to the Fullness of Truth,” he said. “This monument deepens that mission through the universality of love.”
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