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