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Also spelled: Zielinski

Doris Zelinsky, the daughter of Polish Holocaust survivors, was a member of the first class of women admitted to Yale College. After graduating, Zelinsky remained in New Haven to work for the Office of Policy Analysis under Mayor Frank Logue and became involved with the erection of a memorial to Holocaust survivors in the city. Zelinsky tells the story of a day in late 1976 when a group of survivors and members of the New Haven Jewish Federation came to the Mayor's office to ask for a parcel of city land on which to build the memorial. Zelinsky explains that this was an unusual request because the monument was not for people from New Haven and because there were few similar memorials in the United States at the time. She remembers that the proposal confused some people, such as Logue's assistant Rosa DeLauro. But, she recounts, Mayor Logue took great interest in the proposal and helped see it through to its inauguration the following year. She discusses her experiences as the commemoration ceremony and its rededication ceremony in 1981. Zelinsky further recounts Logue's commitment to the proposal and the culture of monument building in the United States at the time. She also talks about her parents' experiences as survivors and the stories that she heard from other survivors growing up. Finally, she discusses her involvement in the creation of a video documentary to capture the oral histories of survivors. Ed Zelinsky, her husband and an Alderman, helped with this project.

Ed Zelinsky left Omaha to attend Yale College in 1968, then graduated from Yale Law School and remained in New Haven as an attorney and a member of the Board of Alderman. He discusses his childhood and adult involvement in Jewish affairs, his entry into city politics in the 1970s and his involvement in the construction of the Holocaust Memorial at Edgewood Park. Zelinsky discusses the political climate of the 1970s. Running as a reform Democrat, he became the first Yale student elected to the Board of Alderman. He shared this political affiliation with friend Frank Logue, who beat incumbent Bart Guida in the 1975 mayoral race. Zelinsky then discusses his role in appealing for the Holocaust Memorial. The New Haven Jewish Federation brought the proposal for the memorial to Mayor Logue in 1976. Although they proposed the New Haven Green for the site initially, the city ultimately decided to construct it in Edgewood Park. This was part of Zelinksy's Aldermanic ward so he represented his constituency in favoring the project. He recounts Frank Logue's support for the project, his memories o the 1977 dedication ceremony, and his views on the 1981 expansion of the memorial.