Alfred Preis was the architect designer of the USS Arizona Memorial. He designed one symbolic element into the Memorial – the “Tree of Life”, a universal symbol of renewal. This relief is his Tree of Life; the same design that lets light into the shrine room on the Memorial. Preis knew the need for a new start. He was a German that came to the U.S. by way of Austria. During WWII he was interned on Sand Island (an island between Honolulu and Pearl Harbor) behind barbed wire because of his national origin. What an irony – 20 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor the US Navy chose him to design the Memorial. Only in America.