Jchoice.Org

Survivors and eyewitnesses provide the richest source of information about the Holocaust. Hearing from a witness is very different from reading about the Holocaust in a textbook. The experiences of Holocaust survivors are powerful testimonies. From their stories we better understand the consequences of indifference and hate, and learn lessons of hope, courage, and responsibility.  We are also inspired to take action and make a difference. 

The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center supports a Speakers’ Bureau of Holocaust survivors and liberators available to tell their story.  They address audiences during field trips to the Museum or outreach presentations across the Midwest. This extraordinary group of individuals represents a rare cross-section of camp survivors, ghetto survivors, hidden children, escapees, and liberators.   Now extremely frail, in their 80s and 90s, they are determined to tell their stories before it is too late.   It often takes survivors many, many years to decide to share such painful memories.   A determination to break the chain of prejudice and hate is often what prompts them to come forward.   Speakers’ Bureau audiences may hear polished accounts of personal experiences or witness a survivor struggling to tell his truth for the very first time.  Our core group of 20 speakers has grown to over 60 survivors in the last three years.  Speakers travel throughout the Midwest, and even accommodate requests from states where there are no living survivors like Alabama and Arkansas, sharing their riveting accounts each year with more than 50,000 middle school, high school, and university students and others, in approximately 650 schools, civic organizations, churches, and synagogues.

In 1981, following a proposed march by neo-Nazis in Skokie, Illinois, a small group of survivors began speaking out about their Holocaust experiences for the first time to teach others the lessons and dangers of unchallenged hate.  For nearly three decades, the survivors provided educational programming to school and community groups from a small storefront Museum located in Skokie, and advocated for required Holocaust and genocide education in the schools. In 1990, Illinois became the first state to mandate Holocaust education; this mandate was expanded in 2005 to include all genocides.

In April 2009, after years of careful planning and leadership from the community, the new Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center opened to the public. Our Museum is among the last of its kind to be built in partnership with survivors. Situated on 3.5 acres in Skokie, the facility serves the entire Midwest as a state-of-the-art Museum, world-class educational institution, and inspirational monument. The Museum’s permanent exhibition tells the story of the Holocaust through more than 500 documents, photographs and artifacts. In total, there are 17,000 pieces in the Museum’s collection.  Since its opening in 2009, the Museum has grown rapidly.  It has welcomed more than 300,000 visitors, nearly half of them students, and in the past year has doubled its membership.  

The Museum’s programs include three to four special exhibitions each year; student field trips and group tours; Teaching Trunks which offers trunks of materials about the Holocaust to students and teachers who are far from the Museum;   a Law Enforcement and Democracy Initiative that trains local police to respond to hate crimes; Student Leadership Days for 5^th-12^th graders to discuss the lessons of genocide and how one person can make a difference; and teacher workshops.  The Museum is also the official Midwest depository for the Shoah Foundation and houses 2,000 survivor videotaped testimonials that are available to the public.   

The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Holocaust by honoring the memories of those who were lost and by teaching universal lessons that combat hatred, prejudice, and indifference.  The Museum fulfills its mission through the exhibition, preservation, and interpretation of its collection and through education programs and initiatives that foster the promotion of human rights and the elimination of genocide.

The goal of the Speakers Bureau is to give the next generation and the general public access to living history and inspire them to fight against bigotry and injustice.  Institutions requesting speakers are asked to fund the speaker’s expenses which may include transportation, hotel lodging, and meals.  Unfortunately, many organizations simply cannot afford these costs.  Funding will help to cover the costs associated with speakers’ travel, enabling the program to extend its reach to thousands more.  With the aging of our survivor population, we anticipate that some may also require aides or volunteers to assist them with travel to schools.  And, though in-person presentations are most impactful, we understand that our survivors are becoming very elderly.  Videotaping survivor presentations will enable student groups to benefit from a survivor testimony in the event that the survivor falls ill.  Additionally, translation of video testimonies to non-English languages, including Spanish and Polish, will accommodate our diverse audiences. 

“Know that this was one of those field trips my students and I will never forget.  You have been instrumental in bringing about the words, “Never Again,” into our vocabulary.  Through our speaker’s story we learned that all of us have been able to see the impact that one person can have on the annihilation of some many millions of people.   We will REMEMBER what we have seen and experienced.” Liberty Jr. High School, Burbank (8^th grade)

“Thank you for telling us your story. I now understand how an event such as the Holocaust can be viewed.  I learned that in order to thoroughly understand this period I must look at this event in many different ways.  I must look at it as a victim and I must look at it as a survivor.  I must look at it as a Nazi and a Jewish person.  I must look at it as a human being and furthermore, I must look at it as myself… I now know how I can affect the world in a positive manner, rather than a negative one.  Thank you!”  CPS, 8^th grade

• Participate in the Museum’s Circle of Life program, which offers an opportunity to connect with the past on a very personal level. Participants learn about the Holocaust from a unique and personal perspective -- through the eyes of a child who lost his or her life during the Holocaust. Each participant is twinned with a specific child victim, and encouraged to learn about Jewish life before the Holocaust and attempt to understand what it meant to be a Jew during the time of persecution.

• Assist the Museum and its partners in preparing background research needed for recording testimonies from local survivors.