Navy Pier hosts moving new Holocaust outdoor exhibit

Navy Pier, along with Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, has opened its newest exhibit, ‘Stories of Survival: Object. Image. Memory.’

The exhibit will be on display outdoors for the first time at Navy Pier’s Polk Bros. Park for guests to experience through Thursday, June 30.

The powerful exhibition, made possible by Lead Sponsors Fifth Third Bank and United Airlines, and curated by Illinois Holocaust Museum, showcases more than 50 personal artifacts brought to America as families fled persecution and war.

“Stories of Survival” features collaborative artworks by celebrated photographer Jim Lommasson and survivors of the Holocaust (including from Ukraine) and seven other genocides, including those in Armenia, Bosnia, Cambodia, Iraq, Rwanda, South Sudan and Syria.

Admission is free, as part of Navy Pier’s nonprofit mission.

“A suitcase, a sweater, a Teddy bear with one eye. The personal things exhibited in Stories of Survival—very small things when measured against the enormity of war—are items that real people held close to provide comfort, connection and identity,” said Navy Pier President and CEO Marilynn Gardner.

“This powerful installation offers insightful answers about individual survivors, but it also stirs meaningful questions. What would you take with you?”

Illinois Holocaust Museum CEO Susan Abrams added: “The exhibition allows the viewer to walk in someone else’s shoes and experience through their eyes the effort to hold on to cherished memories while adapting to new circumstances.”

Examples of stories to discover throughout the exhibit include:

Mirsad Causevic, who was captured by Serb forces in 1992 and was sent first to the notorious Omarska concentration camp and then to a second camp at Manjaca. He managed to save the set of playing cards and recipes displayed in the exhibit.

Ralph Rehbock, who escaped death in Germany with his family in 1938 and saved his family’s train set.

Immaculee Mukantaganira, who lost her husband, her two daughters, many relatives and friends in the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi. She recovered from her daughters’ discovered gravesite meaningful items of clothing. A family photo album brought to the United States with Immaculee also is on display.

The ‘Stories of Survival’ exhibit is funded through a special partnership with the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest.

“We are proud to support this moving exhibit. Holocaust Remembrance and Education is in a moment of transition. Now, 77 years removed from the Holocaust, many of the survivors are leaving us. We have a responsibility to rethink and reshape how we remember the Holocaust,” said Consul General Yinam Cohen, Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest.

Special Illinois Holocaust Museum-curated programs are planned for Wednesday, April 27 and Wednesday, June 8.