Illinois Holocaust Museum CEO Bernard Cherkasov thinks it’s more important than ever to keep educating the public about the Holocaust. So when the Skokie-based museum planned renovations, it was only natural for the institution to open a temporary satellite location in Chicago to carry on its mission.
“This is the 80th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust and World War II, and in the moment of a significant milestone, it feels like the world is in desperate need of the lessons from that dark part of our history,” Cherkasov said. “And taking this opportunity to open this temporary satellite felt like the moment was right.”
Experience360, the museum’s new temporary satellite location at 360 N. State St., held an opening ceremony Aug. 25, which was also International Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day.
“We find ourselves facing an ever-rising tide of hate and antisemitism and authoritarianism here at home and across the globe,” Gov. JB Pritzker said at the event, held a day before the site’s public opening on Aug. 26. “This space will educate thousands every year about the horrors that result from indifference while inspiring us to learn from the past to transform our future.”
The satellite location combines new exhibits with some of the museum’s permanent ones. Experience360 includes the museum’s popular holograms of survivors, immersive 360-degree films, as well as historical photographs and artifacts.
“Visitors will put on (virtual reality) headsets and suddenly be transported to Amsterdam or Paris or Shanghai and hear the voices of the survivors of the Holocaust about key elements in their lives,” said Cherkasov, adding that visitors can also have “interactive conversations with survivors of the Holocaust through holographic technology. It is unbelievable to be able to sit there and have this two-way conversation, and you can ask survivors thousands of different questions.”
The holographic theater offers three new interactive interviews, from Holocaust survivors Rodi Glass and Marion Deichmann, and from Kizito Kalima, who survived the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Kalima is the museum’s first featured genocide survivor who was not in the Holocaust.
Visitors can learn from Kalima and his experience during the genocide and rebuilding his life. Kalima, who was at the opening ceremony, told the Tribune that he wanted to share his story as “part of the prevention of future massacres, atrocities and genocide.”
He hopes younger generations will learn that evil things do happen. “They need to prevent it or call it out as soon as they see the signs … because the genocide, the Holocaust and other atrocities don’t happen overnight,” he said. “There’s plans, there’s execution.”
Cherkasov said this is the first time the museum has added to its collection of holographs.
“My hope is that we will continue to grow,” Cherkasov said. “To tell the story of the genocide in Rwanda –– that happened in our lifetime –– through the lens of a survivor who has lived through that genocide and has rebuilt his life afterward and has such a powerful story to tell.”
Glass and Deichmann “have incredibly powerful stories to tell of their survival, but also of their resilience and of finding their agency in their ability to rebuild,” Cherkasov said. “In their stories are stories of communities coming up together, whether it’s the women of the French Resistance who saved Marion while her mother was taken away to a concentration camp and eventually murdered, or how Marion was saved and survived.
“Or it’s Rodi, who tells her story of how, having been sent to concentration camps four times, she had survived and rebuilt her life with optimism and resilience and love,” Cherkasov said.
Glass and Deichmann were at the opening ceremony. Glass, whose virtual reality exhibition lets visitors walk the streets of Amsterdam with her and relive the tragedy she endured, has been sharing her story since 1998.
“The reason I started to speak is because … very few people in this country knew what happened in the Netherlands, that 75% of the Jewish population was murdered,” she said. “I hope the people who come (to Experience360) will know that … and that I hope maybe they will learn that hate doesn’t get them anywhere.”
Deichmann, author of “Her Name Shall Remain Unforgotten: A Child in the Heart of the Genocide,” hopes the exhibits reinforce a vital lesson. “Well, it’s (meant as a reminder) for never again, but we know it needs to be said over and over again,” Deichmann said.
Renovations are under way at the museum’s Skokie location, which is adding a new visitor welcome center, expanding the auditorium and introducing additional facilities.
“In the last two years we’ve broken our single daily visitation record five times … because what we know is during the moments of crisis, people look to history for lessons and people look to our museum for lessons about resilience, strength and community,” Cherkasov said. “We were literally bursting at the seams.”
The Skokie location is set to partially reopen in January, with a full reopening planned for late summer 2026, coinciding with the closure of the temporary location.
“What I’m hoping is that people will come to this exhibition and also learn the histories of resilience and the histories of hope, the histories of resistance, the histories of love and of strength,” Cherkasov said. “Because the history of the Holocaust has a lot to teach us, especially in the modern world that we live in, you know, that is unfortunately experiencing so much dehumanization and strife.”
In addition to Kalima’s holograph, the Stories of Survival exhibit also features objects from those who survived such strife in Armenia, Bosnia, Cambodia, Iraq, Rwanda, South Sudan and Syria.
While the Holocaust Museum highlights past atrocities, mass violence and persecution continue to unfold. According to Genocide Watch — an advocacy organization whose alerts signal risk but do not carry international legal authority — current genocide emergencies are identified in Darfur, Sudan, Nigeria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, North Korea, Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, China, Gaza, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Despite this ongoing violence, Kalima said, education remains the most powerful tool for prevention.
“If we can educate them, you know, the young generation, the future generation, to look at the signs so they can prevent it before it happens, that will be a blessing to everyone,” he said.
Kelly Haramis is a freelance writer.
Experience360 is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily at 360 N. State St.; admission $12, more information at www.ilholocaustmuseum.org