In February, while visiting Hillsdale College in Michigan, I had the opportunity to visit the Detroit Holocaust Memorial Center – an informative and beautifully designed museum of Jewish life, Pre-war Antisemitism, and the history of the Holocaust, an exhibit which finishes with a display of Jewish soldiers from Michigan who fought in the Second World War.
Very exciting for me was to discover a “Sir Martin Gilbert citing” on the wall of Resistance, dedicated to non-Jews who risked life and livelihood to resist barbarity and help Jews, and to Jewish resistance in all its forms, physical and psychological.
Soren Geiger, my host in Hillsdale and I toured the Museum and met Feiga Weiss, the Head Librarian who is in charge of the vast archival resources of the Memorial Center, and Rabbi Eli Mayerfeld, the Center’s CEO.
Although Sir Martin created the maps for their “Portraits of Honor” of the survivors who came to Michigan after the war, he had never visited the Museum. So it was an honour for me to do so, and an added bonus to find his words inscribed there.
Rabbi Eli Mayerfeld, Director, Holocaust Memorial Center, with Soren Geiger, Assistant Editor of The Churchill Documents, Photo courtesy of Rabbi Mayerfeld.
From Esther Gilbert
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