The memorial was created as a sacred site commemorating the respect for the individuals and families who made up the thriving Jewish community that no longer exists as a result of the horror of the Holocaust. The memorial was designed to educate and enable visitors to learn about the true fate of Bardejov's Jewish community.
On 14 tablets in the shape of tombstones are depicted 3 381 names of Holocaust victims from Bardejov and the surrounding villages. The individual families are listed alphabetically in the following order: father, mother, children or other family members who perished. The lists of names of the victims are an expression of respect for the Jewish community they co-created and for the families of which they were a part. The lights atop the 2 plaques symbolize the eternal light in the synagogues (Hebrew Ner Tamid) and the light of a candle lit on the anniversary of the death of a loved one (Hebrew Ner Neshama). The shields on the 12 tablets are decorated with the names of the tribes of the nation of Israel. In the memorial, 2 of the 14 tablets are half-empty. They are intended for approximately 900 names, which will be added only when their fate is confirmed by descendants, relatives, or new research. The verse „Every man has a name“, which comes from a poem by the Israeli poet Zelda, towers above the plaques with the names of the victims. It is written in three languages and reminds us that all the names belong to real people. They are not just numbers or statistics. The „Star of David“ artwork consists of 2 parts that are in the shape of a triangle. A steel plate is embedded in the bottom base made of local stone, which bears the words „Never Again“. The monument is placed on the original railway tracks, which symbolise the deportation of Jews from the Bardejov railway station to places from where most of them did not return. Individual plaques tell the story of the Jewish community and one of the plaques is dedicated to the Righteous of Bardejov - people who helped Jews during the Holocaust despite the threat to their own lives. The outer walls depict old houses where Jews lived before the deportations and which were later demolished. Only one original wall has survived to this day.
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