The Zekelman Holocaust Center, the largest Holocaust Museum in Michigan, is not only a place of remembrance but also serves as a research center serving both the 100,000 Jewish residents of Michigan and the public.

The Zekelman Holocaust Center opened in 1984 as part of the Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield, Michigan. Twenty years later, the museum relocated to its current 55,000-square-foot standalone facility seven miles away. When visiting the museum, one can find many of the same exhibits in other Holocaust museums. You will find the history of the European Jews, the rise of Nazism and life in the concentration camps. Margorie Carignan authored a research paper during her graduate studies at the State University of New York, Buffalo State College, comparing US Holocaust Museums and the differences to Holocaust Museums found in Europe. In her analysis, she found that European museums generally tended to be places of mourning, while American museums were more focused on teaching and educating the public about the Holocaust. While the center has some similarities to other American Holocaust museums, it has unique characteristics and exhibits that make it different.

Upon arriving at the site, a visitor notices the forbidding building that has won architectural awards, as noted in the Holocaust Memorial Center Newsletter. It was designed by the architectural firm of Neumann / Smith & Associates and built by the Granger Construction Company.

Approaching the museum, one gets the sense that they are about to enter a concentration camp or prison. In World War II, reddish brick and blocks were the most commonly used materials for the construction of the concentration camps. This concept was also used in the construction of The Zekelman Holocaust Center. They took it a step further and overlaid the brick with diagonal wire and cable, giving the appearance of an electrified fence. The top of the elevator tower was designed to recall the images of the chimney stacks of the crematoriums. The entrance suggests a camp guard tower, complete with slit rifle openings. You can even find stripes on sections of the exterior walls, reminding the viewer of the stripes on the prisoners’ clothing. Even the exterior trees are purposely designed to be wiry and small, a sad suggestion to the starving inmates inside the walls.

However, for the nearly 50,000 people who drive by the museum every day, not everyone enjoys having what appears to be a prison in a heavily populated metropolitan area. For some, the museum’s architecture brings forth painful memories. As designers intended to send a message before the visitor ever steps inside, the museum’s outward appearance is not without its critics. Rene Lichtman, a local resident and Holocaust survivor, states that driving by every day brings up the terrible memories of her past, as recounted to Nathan Guttman, a journalist for the Israeli newspaper, Hareetz. Mr. Lichtman states, “It’s painful, it’s like having a concentration camp in your backyard.” Goldie Kalib was twelve years old when she arrived at Auschwitz. Her brother and father died in a cattle car during their transport. A few weeks after the camp's liberation, her mother also passed. Ms. Kalib says the museum brings back many painful memories. Still, she approves of the design, telling Jeffrey Zaslow, a journalist with The Wall Street Journal, that “camps were not a pretty experience – I don’t think the building should be pretty.” Guttman notes that Sidney Blokaski, who was once in charge of Holocaust documentation at the University of Michigan, felt that in the design, “they thought of every cliché.” Zaslow noted that another Holocaust survivor pointed out that no museum could ever capture the real-life nightmare Jews experienced. Zaslow further notes that when the museum’s founding Rabbi, Charles Rosenzveig, was asked about the criticism, he replied, "We wanted to express the hideousness and architecture is a language.”

Another special exhibit at the museum is the authentic boxcar used to transport Jews to the camps. The museum acquired the boxcar working with the German National Railroad and the Technical Museum in Berlin through a generous donation, as described in The Oakland Press. Upon first entering the museum, you’re immediately struck by the appearance of the large boxcar that’s approximately fifteen feet tall and sits right beyond the entrance door. Its sign reads “Werkstattwagen” with the original boxcar serial number still visible. It’s hard for the viewer to comprehend how one hundred occupants could survive a journey that could take weeks in a small compartment with no water or toilets. Adding to the authenticity of the exhibit, the center’s website notes that the boxcar is encircled by a historically accurate copy of the Hannoverscher Bahnhof train station in Hamburg, Germany. This background adds to the viewer’s experience as the boxcar seems to be parked at the station in 1940, waiting to be loaded. Further enhancing the visitor's experience, the boxcar sits on railroad tracks that run through the exhibit and under a glass wall leading outside the museum. This added dimension gives another layer of realism, as many concentration camps had railroad tracks running right up to the front gate to transport Jews and other prisoners.

Another unique exhibit is a living artifact that grows outside the museum and is viewable through a glass wall. Anne Donato, a teacher education specialist at The Zekelman Holocaust Center, notes that Anne Frank writes the following in her diary, “From my favorite spot on the floor, I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver.” Pamela Engel, a journalist with The Times of Israel, details the story of when the 150-year-old tree located in Amsterdam started to die, it was ordered to be cut down. However, a judge ordered a temporary injunction prohibiting its removal. Later, botanists were able to save eleven saplings from the tree. In 2009, The Zekelman Holocaust Museum was awarded one of the saplings. Recipients of the saplings were chosen by the Anne Frank Center in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, based on “commitment to equality, demonstration of the consequences of intolerance or historical significance to civil rights and social justice,” according to a news release from the center. The tree is a powerful historical connection to Anne and her famous diary, as the viewer seems to be sitting with Anne, looking at the same tree.

The museum proudly displays other exhibits that are not only intended to tell the story of the Holocaust but what Jewish life looked like before the war. It features an exhibit about antisemitism and the rise of the Nazis. Similar to other Holocaust museums, it thoroughly covers the concentration camp network and what it was like living in the camps. Directly across from the boxcar, you find an internal flame that burns 24 hours a day and represents all the victims of the Holocaust. Behind it, engraved on a granite wall evoking the feeling of a gravestone, is a list of countries and the number of Jews that were murdered from each. The museum also features a video center that tells the story of the liberation of the camps.

James Young, the Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Founding Director of the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, writes that Holocaust museums in the United States of America are becoming centers for historical education, activism, and fundraising. He observes that instead of studying Jewish history, many are learning about the history of Jews through studying the Holocaust. And while Jewish schools and community centers often run cost deficits, millions of dollars are invested in Holocaust projects and museums. More people now visit Holocaust museums and memorials in Germany, Austria, Holland, France, Poland, Israel, and America than the number of people that died during the Holocaust itself. Young also points out that American Jews have increasingly turned to studying the Holocaust because it has become their “vicariously shared memory.” Carignan found, as part of her analysis of US Holocaust centers, that most European museums and memorials were built with public funds while most US centers are privately funded. This is true with The Zekelman Holocaust Center, as it’s been fortunate enough to have a supportive public that has provided the resources needed to build a stunning museum, allowing more freedom in the design and theme of the museum. However, even being financially independent doesn’t shelter them from controversy and criticism. One critic pointed out to Zaslow when commenting on the building’s exterior, “can you imagine if someone built an African American Museum that looked like a lynching tree.”

(Edited by Brad Poss and Laura Bailey)

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After a long and honored history including service in both World Wars, the story of the USS Nevada and its subsequent memorial in Pearl Harbor are largely forgotten. Although it was present and sunk in Pearl Harbor when the Japanese military attacked the base on December 7, 1941, it is far less remembered than other World War II ships like the USS Arizona or the USS Missouri.

There is no question that the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial remains the signature site for visitors to Pearl Harbor each year. For many, it is the most tangible reminder of when Japanese planes attacked the Hawaiian naval base and surrounding airfields to open the United States’ formal participation in World War II. The U.S.S. Arizona Memorial has become a well-known landmark with its sweeping white superstructure and the engraved names of the 1177 men who died aboard the ship that day. The ship's remains rest on the shallow floor of the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, next to the quay where the ship was tied up that morning. Stretching in front of and behind the U.S.S. Arizona are additional quays where other battleships were tied up on what was known as Battleship Row.

Although it is the best known, the U.S.S Arizona was not the only ship to be attacked. Of the eight battleships that were present in Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, six of them would be sunk during the attack. Visitors today can visualize where each of the battleships was located on the morning of the attack by looking at the quays rising above the water, painted a brilliant white with each ship’s name prominently displayed, signifying its location on the morning of December 7th, 1941.

Memorials commemorating some of the lost ships and men were built at different times. The U.S.S. Arizona Memorial was the first constructed after a significant portion of the memorial’s cost was raised by a campaign boosted by the TV show This Is Your Life and, more famously, a benefit concert featuring Elvis Presley in March 1961. Another significant boost came from the Revell model company, which donated proceeds from sales of plastic models of the sunken ship. The U.S. Naval Institute News documents the details of these fund-raising efforts. In 1972, the second memorial was dedicated to the U.S.S. Utah as described on the USS UTAH BB-31/AG-16: The Forgotten Ship of Pearl Harbor's website. The U.S.S. Utah’s crumbling remains a short distance from the U.S.S. Arizona, separated by a white quay bearing the name of the last battleship anchored in Battleship Row that day, the USS Nevada.

A memorial for the U.S.S. Nevada, the third ship memorialized at Pearl Harbor, didn’t appear until 1981, and of the three, it gets very little visitor attention. Commercial tour operators used to bring tourists through the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, where the memorial was pointed out to tourists. However, post-9/11 security restrictions ended this access. Today, it is not accessible by any of the commercially available tours. Situated near the former chief doctors’ quarters at Hospital Point, visitors need a military or Park Service escort to take them there if they wish to visit and honor the USS Nevada and the men who served aboard her. The Memorial’s location over a mile away from the U.S.S. Arizona memorial, its remoteness, and the security requirements all add to a minimal number of visitors annually. U.S.S. Nevada veteran Richard Ramsey wistfully noted, “It’s not exactly a tourist attraction. It’s pretty far from Honolulu.” The website on the monuments and memorials in Pearl Harbor doesn’t even list it since the Navy owns and maintains it. The isolation of the memorial thus contributes to a sense that the ship's history has been forgotten despite its fantastic record, a story that deserves to be remembered and preserved.

The U.S.S. Nevada’s career began with active service during World War I, but her first significant combat action came during the attack at Pearl Harbor. She is primarily remembered in Pearl Harbor lore for one of the few things that raised the morale of those present that morning. Over the weekend of December 5, 1941, she was moored immediately behind the Arizona. Much of the ship’s crew had gone ashore for the weekend, leaving a partial crew behind to man their watches. With no indications that anything was amiss, the U.S.S. Nevada’s band began playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the flag was raised at the battlewagon’s stern at 8:00 AM. At that moment, the first Japanese planes appeared and began attacking their targets. The ship’s band continued through the end of the song. Only then did the sailors run to their battle stations and prepare to return fire against the Japanese planes, as described by Wayne Scarpaci: a Naval artist, historian, and author.

The U.S.S. Nevada and her men were determined to fight back against the attackers. Her official history shows she downed a Japanese plane two minutes later. At 8:10 AM, Nevada was struck by an aerial torpedo, followed 14 minutes later by the first of many bombs that would hit her that day. Not wanting to be a stationary target and to get away from the furiously burning Arizona ahead of her, the officer of the deck ordered the ship to get underway as quickly as possible. This crucial effort allowed Nevada to cast off her mooring lines while swinging wide of Arizona and moving into the channel to head to sea by 8:40 AM. The U.S.S. Nevada was the only battleship to do so that day, as noted by Christopher Havern: a Historian at Naval History and Heritage Command.

As dazed and shocked sailors on ships and land cheered the sight of the Nevada’s sprint, Japanese pilots saw the ship moving and tried to sink her to block the channel. Already on fire, the Nevada was hit by at least six bombs and began to sink as she moved forward. Realizing she could potentially block any ships going in or out of Pearl Harbor, Nevada’s crew intentionally ran her aground. Later that afternoon, she was moved further out of the way and finally settled onto the bottom of Pearl Harbor just off Hospital Point, with most of her upper structure standing proudly out of the water. Fifty men lost their lives on the ship that day, and two of her crew members were awarded Medals of Honor for their actions, one posthumously as described by Havern.

On February 12th, 1942, the Navy carefully completed refloating the battleship, hoping to return it to service after repairing the substantial damage and modernizing it. The ship's holes were patched, and she was sailed carefully back to Puget Sound, Washington, where repair work was done over the course of several months. Her first wartime assignment took her to the Aleutian Islands in April 1943 to regain control of the only American territory occupied by Axis troops. It was the first time the Nevada’s main guns were used in combat. By May, Japanese troops withdrew.

The U.S.S. Nevada subsequently transferred to the U.S. Atlantic Fleet for convoy duty, and in late May 1944, the ship was alerted to prepare for the D-Day landings in France. The ship fired the first shots from the huge supporting armada to begin bombarding German positions in Normandy. She continued providing fire support until her ammunition ran low, forcing a return to England to reload. The U.S.S. Nevada later supported Operation Dragoon, the landing of troops in Southern France before returning to the U.S. Pacific Fleet to provide fire support at Iwo Jima and later at Okinawa. While operating off Okinawa, the ship was hit by a Japanese dive bomber that killed 11 men. The battleship then brought home former prisoners of war from captivity in what was known as Operation Magic Carpet per Havern.

Like thousands of ships, Navy leaders had to figure out what to do with the U.S.S. Nevada and other surplus ships after the war ended. Given the ship's age and the peacetime drawdown of the Navy, it was decided that tests of the new atomic bomb were needed, and one of the things leaders wanted to know was how well ships would survive this new form of warfare. The U.S.S. Nevada was hit with two nuclear blasts in 1946 but did not sink. Unsure what to do with the radioactive ship, it finally met its end in 1947 following several days of being fired upon by ships of the Pacific fleet for target practice. The scarred battleship that had survived two world wars, including being sunk and refloated later at Pearl Harbor only to be later hit in a kamikaze attack, would not be allowed to be memorialized and preserved like other ships. Instead, she slipped beneath the waves, living only in the memories of those who loved her. There would be no tourists climbing all over the ship as they do on the U.S.S. Missouri, reading about the Nevada’s exploits and learning about its involvement in some of the most titanic events of the 20th century.

The U.S.S. Nevada Memorial came into being thanks to World War II veteran Paul Hughey, who arrived in Pearl Harbor aboard the carrier U.S.S. Lexington immediately following the attack. In a 1983 interview in The Columbia Record, he recalled visiting the base in the late 1970s, when "I took the boat tour up the Pearl Harbor channel and looking at the shoreline, I couldn't place in my mind exactly where the Nevada had been, and I thought that wasn't right... It was a terrific story courage and bravery and seamanship, and I thought it should be recognized. "

The design and construction of the Memorial was very different and smaller than that of the Arizona’s and the Utah’s Memorials. No one offered to host a big-name concert or sell ship models to pay for the memorial’s construction. If the ship were memorialized, it would be left to veterans and their friends to raise the needed funds. A plaque on the Memorial credits the USS Nevada Association and the Pacific Central Navy League with providing the money for its construction. Designers decided to place the U.S.S. Nevada Memorial on a piece of land near Hospital Point, where she ran aground during the attack. The location allows the fortunate visitor to look out and to the right toward the naval base, mentally recreating the courageous journey of the battleship on December 7th. An American flag flies proudly from the tall, white flagpole rising behind the center of the concrete plinth that is the heart of the memorial. A large brass plaque centered on the front side remembers Nevada’s two Medal of Honor and 15 Navy Cross recipients from December 7th and solemnly displays the name of each of the 50 men killed in action.

Dan Martinez, a longtime National Park Service historian assigned to Pearl Harbor, recalls that the members of the Nevada Association intended for the Memorial to be a “purposeful” one, primarily to display the large brass plaque. As such, little effort was made to add symbolic touches. The dedication on December 7th, 1983, was attended by many U.S.S. Nevada veterans, who took the opportunity to have their annual reunion in Honolulu for the occasion. The Memorial has evolved with additional signage and plaques to provide additional information for tourists to understand the ship's history better.

Over time, the memorial has been the site of naval re-enlistments for base personnel and the location for various ceremonies such as significant anniversaries of the attack. The 80th anniversary in 2021 might be the last event that a U.S.S. Nevada veteran could attend in person. The attendee was Richard Ramsey, then 98 years old. The loquacious nonagenarian recalled the Memorial “is a place I can go to, and it’s a place that says Nevada; it just brings back memories.”

As the last veterans who witnessed Pearl Harbor or served aboard the U.S.S. Nevada fade away, the U.S.S. Nevada Memorial ensures that her memory and the actions of the men aboard that historic day will not be entirely forgotten. While far less accessible and grand than the U.S.S. Arizona’s famous memorial, the U.S.S. Nevada Memorial continues to evolve, educate, and inspire its visitors about a storied ship that served in two World Wars only to finally sink under the waves in the early stages of the atomic age.

(Edited by Brad Poss and Laura Bailey)

For more (including 11 images), view the original article.