NISKAYUNA - A public hearing about plans to build a Holocaust memorial on Route 7 is expected to draw a standing-room-only crowd to Town Hall Tuesday night.

The hearing begins at 7 p.m. at the Nott Street Extension building.

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.

A recent planning board hearing about the memorial drew supporters and opponents who spoke for hours about the plan.

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 the gas chamber — on the back of which Lozman plans to engrave the names of Holocaust survivors that lived in the community. An exterior pathway leading to the memorial will be lined with educational kiosks.

Lozman said the design symbolizes the Jews who were transported in box cars to death camps.

"It will be a serene park-like setting for meditation, prayer and learning," he said. "It's designed to symbolically represent what happened during the Holocaust, and why we always have to be diligent of what's going on to prevent this kind of thing from happening again."

But the strong statement made by the memorial has draw opposition.

"It is not the least bit true that there's unity among the Jewish community for this," said Mishka Luft, whose parents are survivors of the Holocaust. "I felt a gut punch on this because of the design of it."