A group of medical students from Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine recently visited The Zekelman Holocaust Center as the cohort prepares for a study trip to Auschwitz.
The visit to the Farmington Hills-based center took place on April 15.
Nearly two dozen students participated in what one OUWB official called “the first big step” of their journey to Poland that is set for June 18-25. It will be the fifth consecutive year that OUWB has offered the one-of-a-kind opportunity for its students.
The purpose of the OUWB Study Trip to Auschwitz is to allow students to delve into the distinctive and tragic era in the history of medicine and critically reflect on its implications for one’s own personal and professional development within the medical profession.
Visiting the Zekelman Holocaust Center prior to the trip is important, said Abram Brummett, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Foundational Medical Studies, and this year’s program director.
“Students have been exposed to some of these ideas throughout the (OUWB) curriculum over the last year … but I consider this the first big step for this unique experience,” said Brummett.
According to its website, the Zekelman Holocaust Center dates to 1984, when it first opened as the Holocaust Memorial Center on the campus of the Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield. It relocated to its current location in 2004. (The address is 28123 Orchard Lake Road — a 30-minute drive from Oakland University’s main campus.)
The center is open to the public, and the organization says annually it reaches more than 100,000 people through “our teacher trainings, virtual museum experiences, virtual programs, and in-person visits to the museum.”
Since OUWB began offering the study trip in 2022, the school has worked closely with the Zekelman Holocaust Center.
In addition to students visiting prior to the trip, two people from the center will travel with them to Poland: Katie Chaka Parks, Ph.D., director of education, and Harry Smith, senior education program manager. (Parks also went on the 2025 OUWB Study Trip to Auschwitz.)
Smith led the OUWB students on their recent tour of the Holocaust Center. He said he wanted to ground the students in an accurate understanding of the Holocaust – with emphasis on its Jewish dimension and the role of individual responsibility. This, he said, will hopefully help the students approach the trip with clarity, moral seriousness, and a sense of personal responsibility.
“Today is getting out of the way any of those notions that could mislead the later rationalities that they pull out of this and the way that it applies to their lives,” he said after the tour. “A good foundation for them to engage in those thought efforts from an informed place.”
In addition to touring the center, students also heard from two other people: Rabbi Herb Yoskowitz, who has taught an OUWB seminar on the Holocaust and medicine for more than 10 years, and Rachel Yoskowitz, an OUWB global health director and faculty member, who is now retired.
She asked students to view the exhibits at the center through the eyes of emerging physicians, and to begin to recognize what survivors – who could one day be their patients – can teach them.
Herb Yoskowitz emphasized the importance of better understanding the perpetrators — especially doctors. He noted that many were “people like you,” who were otherwise ordinary professionals who essentially allowed early, small compromises that led to massive wrongdoing.
Further, he recognized the students for their willingness to be part of an experience that includes material that can be psychologically and morally difficult.
“Thank you very much for exposing yourself to this program,” he said.
For more information, contact Andrew Dietderich, senior marketing specialist, OUWB, at [email protected].
To request an interview, visit the OUWB Communications & Marketing webpage.
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