Illinois Holocaust Museum reopens after major renovation
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Portraits of people targeted by Nazis included in the permanent exhibition at the Illinois Holocaust Museum. Photo: Carrie Shepherd/Axios
The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center in Skokie reopens to the public Wednesday after a 15-month renovation.
The big picture: The $10 million project resulted in a larger welcome lobby, a modernized auditorium and more open, easier-to-navigate galleries at the country's second-largest Holocaust museum.
- Guests can also experience a new reflection space to stop and gather their thoughts as they weave through the main exhibition space dedicated to the history of the Holocaust.
Zoom in: The Zev & Shifra Karkomi Holocaust Exhibition, one of the museum's ongoing exhibitions, has new content on the roots of antisemitism. The museum also added artifacts from the life of Leo Edelmann, a Chicago businessman who helped Jewish families escape the Holocaust.
What they're saying: "For some people, the history isn't something they come here to learn about. It's something that they have lived with. They've grown up with and carried with them their entire lives," museum CEO Bernard Cherkasov said Tuesday at a preview.
- "We have to help people understand how the Holocaust happened, how hatred becomes normalized, how prejudice and dehumanization take hold, how ordinary people, institutions, and governments make choices that can have extraordinary consequences."
State of play: Gov. JB Pritzker, a longtime financial supporter of the museum, delivered a congratulatory video message as he recovers from a medical procedure.
- Museum staff read letters from victims and survivors about what they endured at the hands of Nazis, from the family members they lost to the ways they hid their identities to survive.
Between the lines: Experience360, a satellite museum that's welcomed visitors in River North during the renovation, will remain open through Dec. 31.
What's next: "Blacklist: The Hollywood Red Scare," opening on Nov. 15, explores the intersections of politics, antisemitism, freedom of speech and national security during the Red Scare of the 1940s and '50s.
- The exhibition runs through April 2027.
Flashback: After neo-Nazis threatened to march in Skokie in the late 1970s, Chicago-area Holocaust survivors purchased a small storefront to create a space to teach the public about the Holocaust.
- The 65,000-square-foot, Stanley Tigerman-designed Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center opened in 2009.
If you go: The museum opens Wednesday —Veterans Day — with free admission for active military, veterans and their families.