The Zekelman Holocaust Center

In 2022, The Zekelman Holocaust Center educated 45,000 people about The Holocaust, and The need to fight discrimination, hate crimes, and genocide. Of these, 18,000 were students and adults who visited The hc with their schools, companies or community groups and were educated through guided tours and presentations by Holocaust survivors or children of Holocaust survivors. 3,000 students were educated through virtual museum experiences. 11,000 others toured The hc with their families or made use of our library archive. These visitors came from throughout The state, as well as many from Ohio, Indiana, and ontario, and some from almost every one of The 50 states. They reflect The diverse racial and religious composition of this region.

We presented a wide array of public programs on evenings and weekends featuring movies, lectures, author presentations, and talks by Holocaust survivors. Topics covered in our 2022 programs included a concert by The university of Michigan student orchestra of music performed in concentation camps; a presentation about The humanitarian crisis and war in yemen; a preview and discussion of ken burns' documentary "The us and The Holocaust; and a cooking demostration of recipes from Holocaust survivors. Many programs continued to be held virtually due to covid-19, reaching 5,000 people from around The world, but some events were in-person or hybrid, reaching another 2,000 people.

We operated our statewide educational outreach program in response to The state mandate that public schools provide six hours of Holocaust and genocide education to students in grades 8-12. Since 2018, 1641 teachers have participated in our Holocaust education training seminars for middle and high school teachers; this year, 500 teachers representing 40 Michigan counties received training, and educators reached 135,000 students during The 2022-23 school year. Our educational initiatives also include an art & writing competition for middle and high school students, which this year received 175 statewide entries. Our outreach empowers teachers to use The lessons of The Holocaust to help students understand The dangers of unchecked hatred, and to learn that their individual choices matter.

In 2022, we hosted two special exhibits. "The book smugglers: partisans, poets, and The race to save jewish treasures from The nazis" is The nearly unbelievable true story of ghetto residents who rescued thousands of rare books and manuscripts by hiding them on their persons, burying them in bunkers, and smuggling them across borders. Our most recent special exhibit, "to paint is to live: The artwork of erich lichtblau-leskly," explores The life and work of czech jewish artist erich lichtblau-leskly, who used art and satire as tools of adaptation and resistance while imprisoned in The theresienstadt a ghetto-concentration camp.