46 | OCTOBER 24 • 2019 

Arts&Life

exhibit

After the
Holocaust

New exhibit from DJN Foundation explores 
how Detroit Jews aided survivors. 

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

I

f you visit the Holocaust 
Memorial Center (HMC) 
in Farmington Hills Oct. 
24-Jan. 5, you are likely to 
view familiar family names as 
they appear in a new exhibit, 
“
Aftermath: Detroit Jews in the 
Wake of the Holocaust.
” 
Either the impact of the 
people recalled still affects the 
community or the descendants 
of those people have continued 
the commitments established 
years ago.
The exhibit is the second 
installment in a two-part series 
that recalls Holocaust issues as 
reported by the Detroit Jewish 
Chronicle and the Detroit Jewish 
News. Besides pointing out 
what local residents did to help 
members of their extended 
families, the latest exhibit also 
describes what they did for 
survivors personally unknown 
to them.
“We would like viewers to 
understand that although the 
Holocaust itself ended with 
the Allied victory in World 
War II, Jewish and non-Jewish 
communities in Detroit, in 
America and around the world 
had to deal with the effects of 
the Holocaust,
” says curator 
Mike Smith, Alene and Graham 
Landau Archivist Chair of 
the Detroit Jewish News 
Foundation. He worked close-
ly with Mark Mulder, HMC 
exhibits manager, and Joanne 
Loney, HMC exhibits assistant.
“There were millions of 
displaced persons around the 
world; hundreds of thousands, 

maybe a million, were Jewish. 
They desperately needed food, 
shelter and the basic necessities 
of life, and one of the main 
exhibit themes is that Jewish 
Detroiters did their part.
”
Through the articles posted, 
viewers will learn how Jewish 
Detroiters provided generous 
funding and volunteered in 
various capacities to support 
displaced persons who arrived 
here and for the hundreds of 
thousands who settled in British 
Mandate Palestine, a portion of 
which would become Israel in 
1948.
The names Emma Schaver, 
Louis Berry and Joseph 
Holtzman are seen throughout 
the articles. Schaver, a well-
known singer, became the first 
American to perform for those 
interned in the displaced per-
sons camps.
Stories about not-so-well-
known Jewish Detroiters, such 
as Mabel Giszezak, also are 
spotlighted. Giszezak taught 
classes to Jewish displaced per-
sons who arrived in Detroit not 
knowing English or local gover-
nance and customs.

A MIGHTY RESPONSE
From fundraising campaigns to 
political cartoons, the exhibit 
recalls the people who coun-
tered the devastating effects of 
the Holocaust.
“Unlike secular media at the 
time, the pages of the Jewish 
News and Jewish Chronicle pro-
vided ongoing and often stark 
content and headlines that start-
ed with Hitler’
s rise to power 
to the defeat of Nazi Germany,
” 
says Arthur Horwitz, publish-
er and executive editor of the 
Jewish News and president of 
the DJN Foundation. “Central 
to that ongoing reporting was 
the horrible plight of European 
Jewry and what we now refer to 
as the Holocaust. 
“Detroit Jewry responded 
mightily to supporting the 
American war effort and to 
activating whatever moral and 

details
“Aftermath: Detroit Jews in the Wake of the Holocaust” 
will be on view Oct. 24-Jan. 5 at the Holocaust Memorial 
Center in Farmington Hills. No additional cost beyond 
general admission. (248) 553-2400. holocaustcenter.org.

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