NISKAYUNA — The Niskayuna Town Board meeting room was overflowing with residents Tuesday evening during a public hearing on granting a special permit for a proposed Holocaust memorial that lasted hours.

Michael Lozman, a Latham orthodontist, is spearheading the effort to build a Capital District Jewish Holocaust Memorial on Troy-Schenectady Road, in a lot east of the Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery donated by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.

Town Attorney Robert Hess stressed that the Town Board's role was solely to decide the legality of granting a special permit to the project.

"The issue is not whether we think Holocaust remembrance is important. The issue is not even whether we think this is a good idea," Hess said.

He saod that within its next two meetings, the Town Board would propose a resolution to address the permit. If approved, the project would go back to the Planning Board for site plan approval.

Residents living near the proposed site for the memorial spoke against the project, citing concerns about keeping the residential character of the neighborhood and traffic safety on Route 7.

Dozens of people lined up to voice their opinions on the project, including a few Holocaust survivors.

"I truly hope you will vote for this project. I discussed it in detail with my wife and children and everybody is for it," said Marian Rosenbloom, who was born in Germany and said he escaped a ghetto when he was 11 years old. "It is important to educate people about what happened so it doesn't happen again."

The memorial is designed to have railroad tracks in the shape of the Star of David leading to a box car standing in front of a stone wall — representing a gas chamber — on one side of which Lozman plans to engrave the names of Holocaust survivors who lived in the community, and the handprints of their children on another. An exterior pathway leading to the memorial will be lined with educational kiosks, the content for which Lozman said he is working with educators and the Jewish Federation of Northeastern New York. The memorial, Lozman said, symbolizes the Jews who were transported in box cars to death camps.

"This is not designed to be a shocking rendition of the concentration camp," Lozman told the audience. "Initially there may have been some items in there that caused great concern, but we listened to people and made changes."

Neil Golub spoke at the tail end of Lozman's presentation, saying the Jewish community is not against a Holocaust memorial but has questions about the details of the project.

"Unfortunately in his haste to get this idea through, Michael avoided the Jewish community and many of us feel like, 'Whoa, what's this all about?'" He said. "I would suggest you wait until (Lozman and the Jewish Federation) come to an agreement."

Union College Professor Stephen Berk spoke strongly in favor of the project.

"I have visited Auschwitz 80 times, I have gone to the concentration camps, I have seen Holocaust museums and memorials — this is as good as it gets," he said. "(Discrimination) is on the rise, and I think this proposal will more than (teach) students what discrimination and hate can lead to."

Others felt differently.

"As a retired teacher of 35 years, I don't see an educational component to this memorial," said Sally Magid. "We do need a Holocaust memorial, but this is the wrong place and has not been thought out well enough. It's a skeleton of what it has to be at the end."