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Mais was born Yitzchak Mais on August 18, 1952, in the United States to Holocaust survivors. Commonly known as Itzik Mais, he has become “a world-renowned Holocaust authority” by helping to develop and curate numerous Holocaust museums around the world. Mais is best known for being the director of Yad Vashem’s historical museum (1983–1995) and for his path-breaking approach at New York's Holocaust memorial, Museum of Jewish Heritage (MJH).

Early years and move to Israel

Raised in the Bronx, New York City, Mais studied at modern-orthodox schools and then attended Lehman College, where he studied history and then did his graduate studies in the Holocaust at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, under such luminaries as professors Yehuda Bauer and George Mosse.

Just months after graduating from college and getting married, Yitzchak and Vicky Mais moved to Israel, known as “making aliyah,” in 1973. Most of Yitzchak’s family on his mother’s side, who had survived in Siberia, had already settled in Israel after World War II. The move was a life-changing event for the couple. As Yitzchak told The Jerusalem Post in a recent interview regarding Israel’s place in the world “It’s international realpolitik, and there is only one country where the Jews will be the top priority.”

Career

Yitzchak took up work as a lecturer at Yad Vashem and then served as director of the Yad Vashem Historical Museum from 1983 to 1995.

Mais was founding chief curator of the original permanent exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York and served as its project director from 1995 to 1998. He also curated MJH’s Special Exhibition, Daring To Resist—Jewish Defiance in the Holocaust. The exhibition opened at MJH in 2007 and was one of four exhibitions honored in the Excellence in Exhibition Competition, awarded by the American Association of Museums (AAM) in 2008.

He has since worked on Holocaust museums and film projects around the world, including in Jerusalem, Kiev, Montreal, Moscow, Skopje, New York and Budapest. Today, Mais is the lead curator of Hungary’s Holocaust museum, the House of Fates, in Budapest, expected to open to the public in 2023.

Selected projects and collaborations

Founding chief curator, Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust (MJH:ALMTTH), New York, USA

Chief curator, House of Fates Museum, Budapest, Hungary

Curatorial consultant, Shem Olam museum complex, Institute for Holocaust Documentation and Research, Kfar HaRoeh, Israel

Curator and project consultant, Ganzach Kiddush Hashem, Bnei Beraq, Israel

Curatorial consultant, traveling exhibition for US, Project Finale: The Capture and Trial of Adolph Eichmann

Curator and project consultant, Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum, Western Galilee, Israel

Project consultant, International Shlomo Carlebach Center, Moshav Meor Modi’im, Israel

Chief curator, the inaugural exhibition, Holocaust Memorial Center of the Jews from Macedonia, Skopje, Macedonia

Co-curator and project consultant, Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, Skokie, Illinois, USA

Project director and curator, Memorial Corner, in the Joint Headquarters in Jerusalem (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, JDC-Israel)

Historical and museum consultant, Russian Jewish Museum

Initial project consultant, the Core Exhibition of the TKUMA Holocaust Museum, Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine

Museum consultant, Holocaust Museum adjacent to Babi Yar as part of the Jewish Heritage Community Center, Kiev, Ukraine

Educational and historical consultant, Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, Los Angeles, California, USA, “Voices of the Holocaust: Children Speak” (interactive CD-ROM)

Curator, the new Core Exhibition of the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Center, Montreal, Canada

Curatorial and concept consultant, Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, Oswiecim, Poland

Curatorial and concept consultant, The Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA

Museum consultant, AM OLAM Project, Jerusalem, Israel

Consultant, Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation

Director of historical museum, Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, Jerusalem, Israel

Director of education, The Historical Society of Israel, The Zalman Shazar Center for the Study of Jewish History, Jerusalem, Israel

Representing the Holocaust

Mais has become “a world-renowned Holocaust authority” perhaps in large part due to the attention he has given to how the subject is presented to the general public, Jews and non-Jews. Back in 1987, Mais spoke to JTA about “Americanizing the Holocaust.” It is one thing “to deal with the American participation in the event: showing the role of American liberators, bringing in the experience of survivors, discussing what the U.S. government did and did not do.” However, he criticized what he saw as the “packaging” of the Holocaust along with other evil events, “robbing it of its uniqueness in human history.”

“If you don’t acknowledge the Holocaust’s uniqueness as the watershed event in history that it is, you are dealing with it and avoiding it at the same time.”

Mais has also openly criticized explaining the Holocaust away by saying, “the Nazis were insane” and “Germans were brainwashed,” essentially refusing to acknowledge “that good husbands and good fathers carried it out.”

On the other hand, Mais has maintained, “We can’t be blind to the Holocaust or be blinded by it,” warning that the Holocaust cannot be allowed to become “a surrogate Jewish identity or religion.” Nor should Israel’s right to exist ever be based on the Holocaust, as this “obliterates Zionism,” a cause Jews had been working on since well before the Holocaust.

His approach has been well-documented over the years of his various projects, as noted by Tom Feudenheim (frmr director of the Smithsonian Institute) and the New York Times Review. Mais’ key role as curator and interpretive specialist is to organize and create the narrative in a concise and logical flow that seamlessly links the diverse themes. The result is an engaging, informative and exciting site-specific exhibition for general audiences, students and informed visitors alike.

As curator of the Montreal Holocaust Museum, which opened in 2003, Mais told JTA: “We took great pains to use the artifacts of Montreal survivors,” and “over 95 percent were locally donated.”

In his role as curator, Mais goes to great lengths to present the story of the Holocaust from a Jewish perspective, and not primarily as a Nazi narrative, for maximum reach. In an interview with Neokohn.hu, Mais defended the use of multimedia and other technology in Budapest’s House of Fates, saying there is a need to “create an emotional and cognitive personal relationship to the story.” Mais had underlined this back in the late 90s regarding his work on the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust (MJH: ALMTTH); he placed emphasis on personal stories of the Jews, allowing “the visitors to develop an intimacy with the historical ‘participants’, and [resulting] in a powerful emotional experience that will be remembered long after many of the facts, statistics and maps have faded.”

Critics have maintained the plans for the Hungarian Holocaust museum make it look like “an adventure park.” Mais noted in Neokohn.hu that there was no need to make a Holocaust exhibit too brutal, as nobody will ever understand what those in the death camps actually experienced. Mais’ dedication to connecting with the viewer for a more meaningful takeaway was something he has championed from the beginning at MJH: “The Museum’s innovative approach of highlighting Human history, with a capital ‘H’, tells the particular Jewish story with universal relevance for all audiences.”

As noted by the Wall Street Journal after the opening of the Core Exhibition in 1997 of the MJH: “Although the Museum of Jewish Heritage documents with unflinching detail Hitler’s war against the Jews, it never permits its visitors to view Jews as faceless extras in the drama of Nazi Butchery.”

Or, as the New York Times asked in a review of MJH, “Does depicting Jews in photographs of emaciated corpses and, inferentially, through piles of their abandoned belongings, remember them as they would have wanted to be remembered, or as the Nazis would have them remembered?” The piece goes on to note the flow of the exhibit from before the war, during the Holocaust, and Jewish life after, taking visitors through the building’s three stories “from darkness to light (American liberty as the emblem of liberation).” Symbolically, only the top floor had windows, letting in the sunlight as well as a view of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

In reference to the House of Fates project, Mais has said that a Holocaust exhibit can’t solely lash out at an audience and seek to make them feel guilt for past actions of a part of their society. The goal is for “students to ask themselves ‘which kind of Hungarian citizen do I want to be?’ A good museum doesn’t ‘teach’ per se but instead makes you think about what you saw 1-2 weeks later.”

In 2018, when the Hungarian government handed the House of Fates over to the Association of Hungarian Jewish Communities (EMIH), a new steering committee was set up, led by Mais. This was in response to concerns that the previous involvement of Maria Schmidt had taken the museum in a direction that appeared to whitewash Hungary’s involvement in the deportation of Jews, as well as its own persecution of Jews in Hungary prior to the Nazi occupation.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post in 2019, Mais says: “We make it very clear that the background and social context – similar to many other European countries – had already been there before the Nazis occupied Hungary.” Mais says the museum will also raise awareness to “who risked their lives to try and help Jews."

After some pushback to initial plans leaked after EMIH took over, Mais expressed his confusion as to why parties in Hungary who had issues with the preliminary plans did not, like on his many other projects, simply speak up instead of complaining to the press. Mais told Neokohn.hu the document leaked was “a working copy.” But he also added, “I don’t want to be popular, I want to be authentic,” insisting that the House of Fates will be “different than any other museum.”

Outside interests

Mais is known to love basketball and was consulting curator to the new Basketball Hall of Fame Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts. His passion is apparently not only as an outsider, as he mentioned to The Jerusalem Post “with great pride that he scored 15 points in his high school championship game at Madison Square Garden in New York.”

Personal life

Yitzchak has been married to his wife Vicky since 1973; together they have two children, Gidon and Ilana, and 11 grandchildren.

Publications

“Understanding Jewish Life in the Shadow of Destruction: Teaching the Jewish Narrative,” in PRISM, An Interdisciplinary Journal for Holocaust Educators, pp. 10-16, Yeshiva University, Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education, New York, Vol. 4, Spring 2012. Translated into Hebrew in 2018, in Vol 3 Studies of Shem Olam, Institute for Holocaust Documentation and Research, Kfar HaRoeh, Israel, pp.41-53.

Macedonian Chronicle—The Story of Sephardic Jews in the Balkans, 144 pp., companion volume to exhibition of the same name. Editor and essay contributor, “A Forgotten History: Sephardic Jewish Communities in the Balkans”, pp. 13-19, Skopje, Holocaust Memorial Center of the Jews from Macedonia (former Yugoslavia), 2011.

Memory and Legacy—The Shoah Narrative of the Illinois Holocaust Museum, with Michael Berenbaum, 240 pp., Lincolnwood, Illinois, Publishers International Ltd., 2009.

“A Curtain call for Yiddish Theater?” The Jerusalem Post, p. 24, December 16, 2009.

Daring to Resist—Jewish Defiance in the Holocaust, 146 pp., companion volume to exhibition of the same name. Editor and essay contributor, “Jewish Life in the Shadow of Destruction”, pp. 18-24, New York, Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, 2007.

“Teaching a New Approach to the Holocaust: The Jewish Narrative,” pp. 2-4, in Teacher’s Guide: Daring to Resist—Jewish Defiance in the Holocaust, New York, Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, 2007.

Contributing author, Encyclopedia Judaica, (Revised Edition) ed. Michael Berenbaum, Jerusalem, Keter, 2007.

“The Jews in the Changing World of the Twentieth Century”, with David G. Marwell and Igor Kotler, in To Life: 36 Stories of Memory and Hope, pp. 161- 171, New York, Bulfinch Press and Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, 2002.

"Visualizing the Lodz Ghetto" with Michal Unger, pp.11-14, in The Last Ghetto: Life in the Lodz Ghetto, 1940-1944, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 1995. (Exhibition catalog).

"Commemorating the Shoah - Are There Different Holocausts?" The Forum, Summer/Autumn, 1993.

Contributing author, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, ed. Yisrael Gutman, New York, Macmillan, 1991.

Assistant Editor, The Journal of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, published by Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1986-1991; currently published by Oxford University Press, N.Y., Yehuda Bauer, Editor-in-Chief.

"Institutionalizing the Holocaust: Issues Related to the Establishment of Holocaust Memorial Centers," in Remembering for the Future, Working Papers and Addenda, Vol. II, The Impact of the Holocaust on the contemporary World, pp. 1778-89, ed., Yehuda Bauer, et.al, Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1988.

"Institutionalizing the Holocaust," (Revised Version of the paper presented at the "Remembering for the Future" Conference, Oxford, U.K., July 10 - 13, 1988), Midstream, Vol. 34, No. 9, December 1988.

"Kann Man die Schoa Institutionalisierten?" Schalom, Vol. 4, April 1989, (also in French translation, "Peut-on institutionnaliser la Shoa?"). "Through Enemy Eyes - The Problematics of photographs from the Holocaust," in A Day in the Warsaw Ghetto, ed. Yitzchak Mais, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 1988.(Exhibition catalog). Polish Version, 1992. "On the Road to Destruction: The Fateful Events of 1938," in Kristallnacht, ed. Yitzchak Mais, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 1988. (Exhibition Catalog).

Auschwitz: A Crime Against Mankind, New York, United Jewish Appeal, 1987.

Testimony: Art of the Holocaust, edited by Irit Salmon, Ilana Guri, Yitzchak Mais, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 1986.

Editor, revised English version of The Holocaust and Its Significance, by Yisrael Gutman and Chaim Schatzker, Jerusalem, The Zalman Shazar Center, 1984.

"The Holocaust and Jewish Consciousness," in The A.D.L. Handbook on Israel, pp. 22-25, ed. Yadin Roman and Roberta F. Reisman, New York, The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith,1984, reprinted in The New A.D.L. Handbook on Israel, ed. Roberta Fahn and Joseph Alpher,1988.

Contributing author, Pinkas Hakehillot (Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities), Poland, vol. III, Western Galicia and Silesia, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 1984.