Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center in Skokie, Illinois, temporarily closing for renovations

CBS News

2 days ago

The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center in the north Chicago suburb of Skokie is temporarily closing for a major renovation project.
The museum, at 9603 Woods Dr. near the site where the Edens Expressway crosses over Gold Road, closed all its exhibitions Monday. The museum will remain open for public programs and training sessions by reservation only through the end of the month, and will close completely on July 1.
During the closure, the Skokie museum will be renovated to build a new lobby that can hold "vastly more guests of all ages and abilities." Also planned are a new visitor welcome center, a redesigned auditorium, and a reflection space in the Karkomi Holocaust exhibition.
While the main Skokie museum will be closed, the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center will open a downtown satellite location featuring some of its most popular exhibitions. This satellite location will be in the former Museum of Broadcast Communications space at 360 N. State St. in River North.
The State Street location will open this summer, and will remain open for a year. It will feature several award-winning exhibitions — including the museum's Virtual Reality and Holographic Theatres, and stories of survivors of the Holocaust and genocides around the world.
The main Skokie museum will partially reopen on Jan. 2, 2026, with limited content that will be announced at a later time, and will fully reopen in the summer of 2026 with a grand reopening.