JANUARY 18 • 2024 | 17

more mistreatment.
”
A display case I noticed while
touring the museum shows the
altered prison uniform of tailor
Ben Guyer, a local survivor.
Resourcefully, he added pockets
to the jacket after liberation and
wore it around his displaced
persons camp.

EMPHASIZING EDUCATION
A team put together by Ruth
Bergman, the museum’s
director of education, handled
research and writing.
“We wanted the educational
approach to come through
the exhibit, in the topics and
language, to be consistent with
the pedagogy of the museum,
”
Mayerfeld said. “We went back
and forth to make sure every
word was meaningful.
”
Recognizing that parts of the
Holocaust story were unique
to women, one team member
researched how frequently
women’s stories were being
told in testimonies in other
Holocaust museums. Now,
women survivors’ Holocaust
experiences get more equal
attention with men’s at The HC.
“What did women
experience with regard to
rape, forced brothels, having
periods and needing supplies,
pregnancy and abortion?”
Bergman said of questions they
researched. The new exhibit
incorporates women’s stories
as victims, she said, but also as
partisans and couriers going in
and out of ghettos, as well as
their roles as armed resisters.
In a dark section about the
death camps’ liberation, a film
with captured images from
the time shows respect for
the victims. “We were careful
about not presenting images of
malnourished Jews with shaven
heads in these places, knowing
we never had their permission

to show them. That’s a change
of thinking from the past,
”
Mayerfeld said.
Instead of showing piles
of shoes, suitcases and other
items taken from Jews, the new
exhibit highlights individual
artifacts. The items were those
discovered by liberators after
the war or donated by survivor
families. The HC welcomes
more such items for the display

because artifacts (and archival
documents) will be rotated
periodically.

“What makes artifacts come
to life in the exhibit are the
stories that go with them,
”
Mayerfeld said. Film clips
projected behind spotlighted
items show Jews before the war
interacting with similar objects.
A little girl plays gently with her
doll in one clip, for example.

Mulder said he’s most proud
of how Jewish life and culture
are presented between the wars
in the new “Jewish Heritage”
gallery. “The education team
came up with the brilliant
idea of focusing on relatable
subjects, such as home life,
work or religious life. Within
those topics we explore
different types of experiences
by using survivor testimony as a
way of emphasizing that Jewish
life was not a monolith.
”
Bergman said it took her
team more than 18 months to
write content for the exhibit
panels.
Because it is impossible to
tell of the entire Holocaust,
“we had to make some difficult
choices about what we had to

“WHAT MAKES ARTIFACTS COME
TO LIFE IN THE EXHIBIT ARE THE
STORIES THAT GO WITH THEM.”

— RABBI ELI MAYERFELD

ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER

A panel with remembrances from
the late Zyga “Zygie” Allweiss,
father of the author of this story.

continued on page 18