“The Holocaust: History, Memory & Michigan Voices,” a new traveling exhibition created by the Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills, is on display at Northern Michigan University's Olson Library through April 30. An opening reception is scheduled at 4 p.m. Monday, March 9, in the Library Atrium. A smaller exhibit on art as resistance is also featured.
“In many ways, the traveling exhibition is a condensed, portable version of the Zekelman Center,” said Ryan Bond, an NMU staff member who teaches a history of the Holocaust class and is a member of the center. “The content there used to be oriented more toward the Nazi perpetrators, but now the focus has shifted to victims' and survivors' personal stories—specifically, Michigan survivors. I just learned that the Holocaust survivors who came to this state at some point after the war numbered at least 4,000. That surprised me; I had no idea it was that many.”
When he taught the course in fall 2024, Bond wanted to do something beyond his classroom that would benefit the broader NMU and Marquette-area communities. He invited a guest to campus whose mother was a Holocaust survivor. She stayed for three days, visited six other classrooms, presented a workshop for educators and participated in two full-film screenings of a documentary about her mother.
This past October, three Zekelman Center staff members came to NMU to give class presentations. That visit inspired Bond to propose bringing a traveling exhibit to campus.
“The Holocaust is an important topic that shouldn't just be confined to my classroom,” he said. “The center is very outreach- and teacher-oriented, and because we can't readily bring students there, it made sense to collaborate and find a way to bring the center to us.”
Bond secured support for the idea from Olson Library Director Emera Bridger Wilson and Dean of Library and Instructional Support Leslie Warren.
“Olson Library is excited to host this exhibit, the first of what we hope are many now that we are in our renovated spaces,” Bridger Wilson said. “This exhibit also complements our Holocaust and Genocide Studies collection. We hope that people are made more aware of the collection through programming such as this.”
“It was exciting to unpack three huge shipping crates and collaborate with colleagues from the library and history students who volunteered to set up the main exhibit and the art installation,” said History Professor Kathryn Johnson, who was part of the team that made it happen.
Senior history major Alexis Hall is helping to coordinate the exhibit and related events via an internship. Bond says he is in conversations with the Zekelman Center about possible summer internship opportunities in Farmington Hills for NMU students.
To coincide with the display, three Zekelman Center educators will be on campus March 25-26 for classroom presentations for history and other disciplines. They will also deliver a free full-day workshop for area teachers on using content from the exhibit and the center in their classes. Teachers can earn SCECHs or NMU graduate credit for attending.
Preservice secondary social studies teachers are also invited to the workshop. Johnson said it will be an important learning experience for them to collaborate with current teachers in a meaningful content-specific professional development workshop.
Rick Schaffner from the center will present “Reclaiming Power Through Resilience and Resistance” as part of NMU's UNITED Conference from 1:15-2:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 25, in the Northern Center Ballrooms.
Founded in 1984, the Zekelman Center is the only Holocaust museum in Michigan. Its newly renovated museum is complemented by a research and library archive, special exhibit galleries, educational workshops and public programming. Learn more at holocaustcenter.org.
NMU Media Contact: Ryan Bond, rybond@nmu.edu