They Tried to Erase Us. I’m Coloring Us Back In.
- liora7
- Jul 15
- 3 min read
This project may take 10 years.
It will cost thousands I don’t have.
No one asked me to do it.
But I’m doing it anyway.
I’m painting six million rectangles.
Each one represents a Jewish life stolen in the Holocaust.
Each one is filled in — slowly, quietly, intentionally — by someone who chooses to remember.
This isn’t a protest.
It’s an experience.
A collective act of presence, healing, and connection.
A way to say:"We’re still here.
Still creating. Still remembering. Still united."
Why Six Million Rectangles?
The number six million has become almost abstract — too big to understand, too often repeated without weight.
So I’m breaking it down.
One hand-painted rectangle per victim.
Pages of 60,000 rectangles.
One hundred panels.
Together, they’ll form 100 large-scale artworks.
Each one a physical, visual, human act of remembering.
This is The Six Million Project.
If I Painted Alone, It Would Take 30 Years
It takes about five seconds to paint one rectangle.
If I did this all myself, it would take me 30 years.
But I don’t want to do it alone.
This project is meant to bring people together — around a table, in conversation, in quiet.
It’s not just about memory.
It’s about making memory tangible.
It’s something you feel with your hands.
Some people say it’s meditative.
Others say it’s emotional.
For many, it’s healing.
I’m Building a Global Memorial from My Dining Room Table
I’m a freelance designer living in Israel.
I don’t have a team. I don’t have grants. I don’t come from money.
I spend my days designing coffee-table books, helping my husband’s new kindergarten in Raanana, and squeezing this project into nights and stolen hours.
I’m also a second-generation Holocaust survivor.
The trauma didn’t end in the camps — it lives in memories, in triggers, in my family.
It shaped my sense of identity and purpose.
That’s part of why I moved to Israel.
It’s the only place in the world where I knew I could live openly and safely as a Jew — where I didn’t have to explain, hide, or apologize.
That choice — and that fear — are woven into this project too.
I reached out to museums. Yad Vashem. A Holocaust institution in the U.S.
No one took interest. I understand why.
So I started from the ground up.
A Response to Antisemitism — and to Forgetting
We’re living through a shocking wave of global antisemitism.
In the streets, online, on campuses.
I never thought I’d see it like this.
People ask, what can we do?
This is one thing.
It’s not loud.
It’s not political.
It’s quiet, human, and deeply Jewish.
It’s about showing up, picking up a marker, and spending five minutes honoring someone who never had a chance to live their life.
It’s about presence.
It’s about saying:
"You didn’t erase us. We’re still here. And we’re still coloring in the story."
How You Can Be Part of It
You don’t need to be an artist. You just need to care.
• Host a coloring session – in your home, school, or shul
• Print a page and color it – I’ll send you the template
• Donate materials – paper, markers, art supplies
• Share this blog post
• Introduce me to someone who can help – curators, funders, journalists
What This Feels Like
You sit.
You color.
You feel the scale of it.
For some people, it’s grounding.
For others, it opens something emotional.
For everyone, it becomes real.
It connects us to memory, to art, to one another.
I’m Just Getting Started
This began in my town.
It’s already spreading through Israel.
And soon, I hope it will spread across the world.
The Six Million Project is about more than history.
It’s about choosing presence over absence, memory over silence, unity over despair.
• They tried to erase us.
• I’m coloring us back in.
• One rectangle at a time.
Follow the Journey
→ Host an Event, contact me: info@sixmillionproject.org
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