On September 17, I visited the Illinois Holocaust Museum’s temporary downtown annex, “Experience360.” The main museum in Skokie, the third largest Holocaust museum in the world, is currently under renovation.
CEO Bernard Cherkasov gave me a warm welcome and shared the museum’s mission. I reflected on my past engagements with the Jewish community, including trips to Israel with Prime Ministers Koizumi (2006) and Abe (2015), my visit to the Holocaust Education Center in Fukuyama, Hiroshima before coming to Chicago in May, and my meeting with AJC Chicago on August 19.
I toured the exhibits with Doris Lazarus, daughter of Holocaust survivors. She explained that the museum was founded in Skokie in 1981 in response to the 1977 National Socialist Party of America march attempt. Many Holocaust survivors, including her mother, Leah “Lonia” Mosak, were central figures in establishing the museum to educate future generations. Lonia was born in Poland and survived the ghetto, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the Death March. I also saw a Satsuma tea set donated by Miriam Goldberger, a Sugihara survivor.
One of the museum’s highlight exhibits was the VR 3D film A Promise Kept, in which Holocaust survivor and former Museum President Fritzie Fritzshall retraces her childhood and survival at Auschwitz, offering a profoundly moving and immersive account that brings the history and memories of the Holocaust to life.
As the second largest Holocaust museum in the United States, the Illinois Holocaust Museum not only honors the memory of the millions who were massacred during the Holocaust, but also salutes the courage and resilience of survivors, teaching universal lessons that combat hatred, prejudice, and indifference. Looking ahead, I emphasized our shared responsibility to preserve history and bear witness, and the duty we all share to build a world rooted in justice and empathy.
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