Last June, a crane unloaded four oval granite boulders from a truck and laid them in a field on the southeast corner of the F.R. Newman Arboretum at the Cornell University Plantations. Three of the boulders, each ranging from 4 to 8 tons, were hollow in the middle. The fourth was intact. Now, as a result of a May 5 planting ceremony, fresh green oak leaves are rising from the centers of the three cored granite stones.

The boulders are an extension of the memorial exhibit "Garden of Stones" by famed environmental artist and Cornell A.D. White Professor-at-Large Andy Goldsworthy. The exhibit, which honors victims of the Holocaust, is on loan indefinitely from New York City's Museum of Jewish Heritage -- A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. A permanent memorial of 18 similarly hollowed rocks, each with a dwarf chestnut oak sapling growing from the soil-filled centers, sits in the Manhattan museum's rooftop garden. 

"The exhibit serves as a very powerful symbol of how art and nature can be combined to remind us of our common humanity and our often-difficult history," said Donald A. Rakow, the Elizabeth Newman Wilds Director of Cornell Plantations. 

"While I don't want to put words into Andrew Goldsworthy's mouth, I think this piece is about the adversity of life against unyielding forces," said Thomas Whitlow, Cornell associate professor of horticulture.

British artist Goldsworthy is well-known for his use of stones, leaves, wood and water, among other materials, to create art pieces that only last for short periods of time, though he often photographs his artworks. 

"This is the first time he has used living plant material that he expects to live for some time," said Whitlow. In 2002, when Goldsworthy envisioned the New York City memorial, Whitlow, other faculty members and students played a key role in advising Goldsworthy on the type of tree to use, the type of stone and on coring and creating an irrigation system through the rock. The dwarf chestnut oak (Quercus prinoides ) only grows about 10 feet tall, is more like a shrub than a tree, often has more than one stem and can live for hundreds of years. "Over decades, the trees will grow and change the virtual impact that the sculpture has," Whitlow said.

A Connecticut stone worker with a 4,000-degree blowtorch cored the stones in a widening bottle shape through the center. 

At the May 5 dedication of the exhibit in Cornell Plantations, Holocaust survivors and others of Jewish ancestry planted a dwarf oak in each of the three hollowed stones. A crowd of friends, family, students and Cornell community members looked on and listened to remembrances. Goldsworthy had a prior engagement and could not be in attendance, but a statement he wrote for the occasion was read by Whitlow. 

As the trees grow, their roots will fuse to the stone. The soil and clay that fill the hollow of each rock also extend down beneath the rocks. Eventually, Goldsworthy hopes the roots will grow through the rock down into the ground. 

"The stones are not mere containers," Goldsworthy wrote in his statement. "The partnership between tree and stone will be stronger for the tree having grown from the stone, rather than being stuck in it."

Goldsworthy said he chose the granite stones because they "have had a long and, at times, violent past." The stones, formed by fire within the earth, traveled up to the surface where they were carried and worn down by glaciers, moved by New England farmers and recently trucked to New York City and Ithaca. The boulders are on loan to Cornell at Goldsworthy's suggestion. Cornell Plantations, the A.D. White Professors-at-Large Program and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art collaborated to make the exhibit possible. 

"My working of the stones is a continuation of the journey these stones have made so far," says Goldsworthy in the statement. "They have a history of movement, struggle and change -- appropriate associations, I hope, for a Holocaust memorial garden." 

Also at the dedication ceremony, Holocaust survivor and Cornell alumnus Peter Komor '61 spoke about his survival at a Nazi concentration camp, as he described the day the camp was liberated. He and his granddaughter, Isha Komor Tohill '08, planted the first tree in one of the boulders. In a separate boulder, Fred Voss, who also survived the Holocaust, and his wife, Ilse, planted another sapling. In the third hollowed boulder, Shiri Sandler '05, co-leader of Students for Tolerance, Awareness and Remembering Survivors of the Holocaust and Genocides (STARS) and Cornell alumnus Dana Diament planted the third small oak.

During the last phase of his term as A.D. White Professor-at-Large through June 2006, Goldsworthy hopes to make a final visit to Cornell.