How Far Is New Amsterdam?

In 1954, this dramatic piece of public art was placed in Forest Park, at the corner of Lindell Boulevard and Kingshighway. Carl Mose, then head of the Sculpture Department of Washington University, created it as a symbolic representation of a famous wartime speech by President Franklin Roosevelt. It is known as the Four Freedoms speech. Roosevelt was reminding Americans that the War was being fought to preserve our precious freedoms: Freedom from Tyranny, Freedom of Religion, Freedom from Fear and War and Freedom from Want.

Along with human figures and Biblical quotations on the wave-shaped work, there is a sailing vessel depicted in raised relief. It is the St. Catherine. That ship was not an afterthought. It is the ship that brought 23 Jewish refugees to New Amsterdam in 1654. This monument celebrates the 300th anniversary of the arrival of Jews on the American continent. It is one thousand miles from Manhattan to St. Louis. So, why is it here?

By 1954, the Second World War had been over for nine years. The State of Israel had been established only six years earlier. American families, including Jewish families, were facing their war losses. But for Jewish families, there was an enormous additional burden. They were confronting the growing realization that most of their European relatives had disappeared in gas chambers and unmarked forest graves. 

This monument was not a project of the City of St. Louis. It was a group of St. Louis Jewish Community leaders that had commissioned the sculpture. The St. Louis Jews intended to make a statement. Erecting the monument on Jewish Community-owned property just would not do. Its location had to be a part of the civic landscape of the total community. It dramatically proclaimed our arrival and presence in this land for 300 years. The St. Louis Jewish community was telling the world, in case you might have forgotten, our ancestors had been in America one hundred twenty-two years before the Declaration of Independence. Our ancestors and our sons fought and died for those four freedoms. We are still very much a part of the fabric that is essential to the well-being of this community.