“… in 1946 I had found out for certain that, like so many others, almost my entire family had been wiped out…” The word Kria means tearing of garments. Herman Wald explains the meaning of this figure: “Kria” thrusts out his bare chest with his head high, in defiance of his enemies, yet with dignified hope and pride, as if to say “I am here to stay on earth, which is the birth right of every man, be he a Jew or any other race…”
He created this figure as a personal reaction to the news of the Holocaust. The facial features are his own. Subsequently he was commissioned to cast it in bronze and it was erected at the Jewish Aged Home in Sandringham, Johannesburg.