Next Stop: The Killing Fields

Perhaps it’s telling that my idea of a pleasant afternoon these days involves making the short trek to Skokie to visit the new Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, but that’s exactly what I did today. Back in April, when it opened, I had found out too late that Bill Clinton and Elie Wiesel were speaking at the grand opening, and missed my ticket-buying window. But due largely to a lull in nannying gigs and a Sarah Vowell reading binge, I decided today was the day I’d finally get over there.

Feeling a little cocky about my own Holocaust knowledgebase and past visit to the mother of all Holocaust museums in Washington, I wasn’t expecting to come out feeling significantly more informed. However, I think that because of this museum’s much smaller footprint, I got a better sense of the enormity of the Holocaust itself. Also, the it’s the fact that it’s in Skokie, and not in a city packed to the gills with overwhelming museums, that brought the experience home. Knowing that plenty of Holocaust survivors and their families live in the area makes it more tangible than looking around and seeing hordes of tourists exiting tour buses.

The most jarring part, initially, was actually entering the museum. The reviews I read correctly reported that the main entrance is difficult to find. Though to be fair, one docent did apologize for the signage throughout not being so great yet. However, there was one museum employee that looked as if he walked the perimeter of the building expressly to find wayward patrons like me and direct them in.

The fact that today may have been the sunniest day of the year so far added to the shock of finally gaining entrance. The box office area is almost completely dark — so much so that it took at least 10 seconds for my eyes to adjust and recognize the faces of the people in the ticket booth and security checkpoints.

When you see the museum from the Edens expressway, you can see that half of the building’s exterior is black and the other half is white, so that you enter in darkness and leave in a much brighter and sunnier part of the building. It’s symbolic for many reasons, which I’ll let the architecture critics and journalists explain more succinctly. But the desired effect works.

It’s been so many years ago that I visited the D.C. museum, so it may very well be that it has a sizable collection of genocide-inspired works of art, but for me, I appreciated that element of the Skokie museum the most. The works of art on display paid homage to other genocides before and since the Holocaust in places such as Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, Darfur, Armenia, Ukraine, Russia and others. And since I’m as inept at describing art as I am describing fragrances, I’ll just say that you should see it in person to get the full effect.

So, in conclusion: definitely visit the museum yourself. And spend the time watching all of the great film snippets throughout the exhibits — since the museum is small you can watch them all and still see everything in a few hours or so. And be sure to plan a less somber activity after you leave. You may need to decompress even after leaving from the white wing.