Farmington Hills — The Zekelman Holocaust Center will reopen its core exhibit Jan 28 with an altered approach: featuring the experiences and voices of Holocaust survivors and victims and balancing the horror of the Holocaust with themes of resilience and defiance The museum was opened in 1984 but has been operating from Farmington Hills for 20 years with Holocaust survivors initially active in the design and daily activities such as conducting tours A survivor still speaks at the museum every Sunday but there are fewer and fewer to share experiences of the Holocaust "The Holocaust Center has to center the stories of the survivors because they're not here to tell us themselves and so you're surrounded by their stories," Mayerfeld said and they represent not just those who survived The $31 million new exhibit has been in the works for the last seven years; construction began last spring The exhibit begins with Jewish life in Europe before World War II and takes visitors through the rise of Nazi Germany the start of the war and violence against Jews life in and liberation of concentration camps and the aftermath Through a carefully curated pathway of galleries and exhibits the museum tells the story of the Holocaust through its victims and survivors rather than focus on the perpetrators but we want to talk about its impact on the people who were the victims and also how they reacted "One thing that was very important to us was that the story of the Holocaust begin and end with the voices of survivors." One of the exhibit's goals is to help Michigan students make sense of the subject even though the events of the Holocaust were decades ago 'This is what happened,' although there is plenty of that and a lot more of 'This is what it was like when this happened to me.'" The center is a source of information for the community and Mayerfeld said there has been increased interest from the public since Oct People want to understand the roots of antisemitism Israel has responded by heavily bombing Gaza a coastal territory roughly the size of Detroit that is home to 2.3 million people vowing to dismantle Hamas and free the 100 hostages still held there Around 85% of Gaza's population have left their homes and a quarter are starving with limited access to food, water and medical supplies, according to the United Nations. The Palestinian death toll has surpassed 25,000 people Each gallery in the exhibit highlights a blend of themes and ideas physical artifacts and real stories told through quotes written on walls and filmed interviews with survivors including photos and videos from concentration camps and antisemitic propaganda The museum intentionally limited graphic images of violence and the concentration camps in the exhibit but how do you do it in a way that's going to actually be helpful and productive and educational Photographs and videos of graphic violence can cause trauma and force people into "fight or flight" mode "By tempering the actions of the Nazis with the perspectives of the survivors and their resilience and their bravery .. (it) helps to tell that story and at the same time our goal is to empower people when they leave here the museum replaced an older exhibit of graphic and violent scenes from the liberation of concentration camps with artifacts found in the camps by liberating soldiers including wedding rings and children's toys "These are (artifacts) that we can't tell the stories of because we don't know the people anymore and it's a great tragedy that we don't know anymore." a Swedish University of Michigan alumnus and architect who saved thousands of Jews in German-occupied Hungary and photographs are offered of the Sonderkommando a group of inmates forced to work around gas chambers in Auschwitz who secretly took the pictures They are scattered throughout the exhibit to show different forms of resistance to the Holocaust Oppression and personal narratives are a repeating theme One hallway is lined on one side with constantly shifting excerpts from hundreds of laws passed in Nazi Germany to limit the rights of Jews while the other displays quotes from survivors describing the feelings of isolation 'Look what the Nazis did,' it's looking at how it impacted the people who were living there," Mulder said Curators also kept the focus on Michigan-based survivors when possible focuses on the killing of Jews in the Soviet Union after the Nazis invaded The gallery looks at the town of Davyd-Haradok as a case study because many members of its Jewish community moved to Michigan before the Holocaust While much of the exhibit focuses on humanizing the victims and survivors "The people who committed these terrible atrocities were human beings These were our neighbors who managed to do these things," Mayerfeld said "One of the things that we want people to know when they leave the museum is that I am capable of doing this that this level of atrocity doesn't happen because it's like a hurricane or an earthquake It happens because individual people make decisions." The exhibit concludes with the personal stories of survivors displayed beneath the building's six spires that symbolize the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust as well as a history of the word genocide and other historical examples of it South Africa recently accused Israel, which was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust, of committing genocide against the Palestinian people at the United Nations’ top court "People want to understand what does genocide really mean what are the lessons that we can take from the past and apply so that we understand what a just war is," Mayerfeld said “We all acknowledge the terrible cost to civilians during war is the targeting of a people for destruction The accusation against Israel is false because Israel is not intentionally targeting civilians,” Mayerfeld said “All nations have an obligation to defend their citizens from attacks that are aimed at murdering their population Using the term genocide is a form of antisemitism called Holocaust inversion because it falsely accuses the Jews of acting like the Nazis "World War II was a war that sort of everyone agreed was a just war What are the lessons of how that war was fought and what mistakes were made and what can we do differently today So learning from history is really important."