It seems so right for David Newman to be a part of Rhode Island’s Holocaust memorial. He wears the number on his arm and can tell of brutal, demeaning years in concentration camps in Poland and Germany. He and others carry memories that need to be put into solid form so that people can draw on them and learn from them.

He has been working for nine years to make the memorial happen.

It has been almost three years since Newman and I sat in the house he built in Narragansett, with its beautiful view of the Narrow River, and talked about the memorial that would take its place among other memorials along South Main Street in Providence. The site had been designated by the city. The design was complete. There would be six pillars, each representing a million Jews killed in Nazi camps. There would be the names of the camps in stone on each side of the entryway. It would be a simple, eloquent reminder of a time when people looked away from obscene human madness.

“History is great,” Newman said at the time. “But people learn history and it doesn’t stay with them, not like it does with something visual.”

It seemed the memorial would soon be a reality.

It hasn’t happened. A project of crystal clear social and historical value has become mired in a dispute within the Rhode Island Jewish community. It has even gone to court.

David Newman, and other members of the Holocaust Survivors of Rhode Island, are into their late 80s and 90s. Some of the original members of the group have died without seeing even the first shovel of dirt turned on the memorial project.

“We’re getting old,” says Newman. “There’s Alzheimer’s, people lose their spouses. Some don’t drive anymore.”

Newman is undergoing chemotherapy for a malignant tumor on his pancreas. There is a certain urgency

Last Tuesday, his suit against the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island and its Holocaust Education and Resource Center was to be heard in Superior Court. Newman alleges that the two have undermined fundraising for the memorial by telling people that his Holocaust Survivors of Rhode Island is not capable of building a memorial. Officials of the Federation and Center deny the charges.

Last September, the Providence Board of Park Commissioners withdrew authorization from the Holocaust Survivors to develop the memorial and transferred it to the Jewish Federation at the urging of the Federation. Newman is getting pushed farther and farther from the project to which he has given years. Even some members of his own group have decided the Federation has a better chance of building the memorial.

“This is killing me,” says Newman.

The court hearing was postponed until September.

There has to be a way to resolve this, although an attempt to use the Jewish War Veterans to mediate the dispute didn’t work.

Everybody apparently wants the same thing, a memorial that will honor those who survived, like Newman, and those who did not — a memorial that will teach the lessons of the Holocaust for years to come.

It is indeed a sad day when something so vital becomes a source of division rather than unification.

It would be a very good thing if, on that day in September when Newman’s suit is due to be heard in court, there is no reason to hear it.

Obviously, the Holocaust Survivors have to play a part in the memorial. In April, Newman wrote to the Federation asking for a meeting to address differences.

He says he never received a reply.

That doesn’t seem the best way to resolve the problem.

bkerr@projo.com