16 | JANUARY 18 • 2024 

educational programming 
across the state. To date, more 
than 60 percent of the funds 
have been raised.

After renovating the 
museum’s core exhibit, “The 
Holocaust,
” visitors will 
experience redesigned galleries 
reflecting the educational 
institution’s new orientation. 
The installation takes up 
15,000 square feet of space 
on two levels of the building. 
Public tours stopped during 
the build phase that began in 
late May 2023, but The HC 
continued to present a series 
of public programs, events and 
temporary exhibits. 

“Hours of discussion went 
into determining which items 
should be included to best 
meet the goals of our exhibit,
” 
Mayerfeld said.
“We got into the weeds,
” 
Mulder acknowledged, 
describing his collaborative 
relationship with RAA. He’
d tell 

project manager Gabriel Ivorra 
and other principals from RAA 
his curatorial vision for the 
new exhibit, and they would 
come up with ideas. “I would 
respond, and we went back and 
forth.
” Some decisions were 
small but powerful, such as 
whether to add a cracked pane 
for the Kristallnacht section.
“Each design choice you 
make has consequences,
” 
Mayerfeld said. “Our big choice 
is the focus on the survivors’ 
testimonies,
” referring to the 
museum’s extensive collection 
of recorded video interviews. 
“We didn’t want to focus on 
the perpetrators, but rather 
how Jews reacted to their 
circumstances in whatever 
was happening next,
” he said. 
“In ‘The Final Solution’ (a 
necessarily perpetrator-focused 
gallery), we let survivors talk 
about their own family being 
rounded up and subjected to 

continued from page 14

Midland High School 
students tour the new 
exhibition that stresses 
Jewish responses to 
Nazi actions.

ZEKELMAN HOLOCAUST CENTER

OUR COMMUNITY
COVER STORY

