AFF-Detroit Draws Lessons for Today from Holocaust Memorial Center

“There is not Jewish history and world history. We’re all on the river of history together.”

On January 14, the Detroit chapter of America’s Future Foundation hosted a tour of the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, observed on January 27.

Regular AF attendees made up about half of our group, while others joined us to inform themselves about the dangers of anti-Semitism, or to recall a period of history which they considered important. One of our participants drove over three hours to pay tribute to family members who had perished during the Holocaust.

Our tour was led by a skilled docent, whose knowledge of the Center’s architecture, and about the history of the period, made for a rich, and meaningful experience. He started the tour by picking up an Encyclopedia-sized book from a stand opposite the Center’s front desk. Flipping it open, he demonstrated that each page, in miniscule print, contained the word, “JEW,” repeated line after line. Even with more than one-thousand entries per page, he told us it took the entire book to “name” all six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

One World, One History

In a circular room off the lobby, our docent led us to the Center’s timeline of history. Events of Jewish history were noted at the bottom of the timeline, with other world events noted at the top.

While using that timeline to describe the earliest genesis of anti-Semitism, our docent admitted his distaste for the exhibit layout. “There is not Jewish history and world history. We’re all on the river of history together.”

From the round room, we entered a warm, golden space filled with artifacts about the history, and practice, of Judaism. Many of those artifacts were the products of Holocaust survivors, including an intricate Torah. Running along our blind spot on a side wall as we learned about Jewish life in the 19th century were displays warning of a rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe.

The final piece our docent addressed was a sculpture of a Jewish family sitting at the Sabbath table. Each family member’s face is turned towards the same unknown disturbance.

“Is it a Molotov cocktail? A brick through the window? A knock at the door?” the docent asked. “We will never know.” Regardless, he explained, the family is unprepared for what is to come.

Descent Into Madness

Around a disguised corner from the sculpture of family life interrupted, a ramp takes visitors down a darkened hallway meant to replicate Germany’s literal descent into madness under Adolf Hitler. There, our docent described how the Nazis would apply the pseudoscience popular at the time to their racially-motivated hatred.

In the darkened lower level of the museum, the architecture is designed to be unsettling. Sharp corners at the end of exhibits, our docent explained, replicate for visitors the inability of those who lived through the Nazis’ rise to power to perceive what was coming next. They could not know, as we do, that what started with hate-filled propaganda and book burning would lead to racially-based laws determining the winners and losers of society, or the divestment of civil rights from undesirables. No one expected that Hitler’s rise to power would cost two-thirds of European Jews, and five million non-Jews, their lives.

Unfathomable Atrocities

Around another of those sharp corners, we were confronted with the pristine and intimidating uniform and weapons of a member of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence-gathering wing of the SS. It loomed opposite large panels describing the backgrounds of the Holocaust’s five million non-Jewish victims: gypsies, homosexuals, Poles, those with disabilities, Communists, and members of the clergy

In an exhibit about the Warsaw ghetto, our docent supplemented the horrid details of ghetto life with his own photographs of Jewish residents dead in the streets from starvation. Disease, starvation, and hunger killed 100,000 Jews in the ghetto before the Nazis sent them to Treblinka’s gas chambers. When they learned of their fate, our docent explained, the remaining ghetto residents rose up against the Germans, choosing their own end rather than letting themselves become victims.

Beside the ghetto exhibit, a display showed wartime newspaper articles reminding visitors that western countries knew about Germany’s mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews even as early as April 1943.

When we passed under a replica of the metal gate that stood outside several German concentration camps, declaring “Arbeit Macht Frei,” our docent reminded us that this was one of many German lies. The idea that “work will make you free,” lulled new arrivals into a false sense of calm, when, in reality, the Germans never intended for their enemies to experience freedom again.

On the other side of the gate, we entered the section of the museum that represented the Holocaust death camps. A diorama of one of the most notorious camps – Auschwitz-Birkenau – stood before us. Life-sized photographs along the walls showed transports of Jews newly arrived at death camps. The lives of every person not wearing a uniform, our docent told us, would come to a premature end before the end of the day. In the crowds were women and children, waiting sedately for whatever lie the Nazis had given for what was to come: hot showers, delousing. Our docent pointed to the face of a young Jewish girl in the photographed crowd.

“What threat did she pose to the great German government?” he asked.

On the way out, standing below the gangway, was a Jew in the striped uniform of a camp captive, reminding us all of what was at stake, should we not heed the warnings of the past.

Speaking Up Is Paramount

After our tour, several members of our group met to discuss the museum, and its lessons for today. We decided that it was paramount for us to speak up against rising anti-Semitism. There, we felt we were at a disadvantage, because most of us had never personally witnessed anti-Semitism in our lives, except online in chat rooms, where we diagnosed it to be of special concern. We also discussed our need to address the hatred and prejudice which are too prevalent in our society.

We plan to revisit the issue of combating hate and anti-Semitism with future programming, and will search for resources that let us help to foster a society where something like the Holocaust could never occur.

The AF-Detroit chapter is grateful to our hosts at the Holocaust Memorial Center, and to our long-time members and new faces for joining us for this humbling learning experience in recognition of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.