Now on display through May 31, “The Book Smugglers” exhibit highlights the courageous steps that people took during the Holocaust to protect the Jewish cultural memory from the Nazis and Soviets.

Ryan Patrick Hooper | WDET | January 18, 2022

“Would you risk your life to save a book?”

That’s the question at the new exhibit “The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis.” It’s on display now through May 31 at the Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills.

It tells the story of Jewish residents who helped protect their cultural artifacts by rescuing thousands of rare books and manuscripts — first from the Nazis and then from the Soviets — by hiding them and smuggling them across borders during the Holocaust.

The exhibit is named after a book with the same name written by David E. Fishman, who will join the museum virtually to discuss the exhibit and his book on Jan. 27 as part of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Listen: Rabbi Eli Mayerfeld, CEO of the Zekelman Holocaust Center, talks about the importance of “The Book Smugglers” exhibit in modern times.