The Zekelman Holocaust Center
Differing Preservations of the Holocaust
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)
