SHOAH: How Was it Humanly Possible, a traveling exhibit about the Holocaust, will be displayed along with Champaign-Urbana Community Connections to the Holocaust at Unity High School in Tolono, IL from February 10th-13th, 2025. This exhibit is free and will be open to the public on February 13th from 3:00 PM - 9:00 PM. This exhibition displays major historical aspects of the Holocaust.
Known in Hebrew as the Shoah, the Holocaust was a total and systematic genocide, between 1933 and 1945 in Europe by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. Their aim, complete annihilation of the Jewish people through mass extermination. These large panels bring the past to the present and enable visitors to further understand the Holocaust and remember the victims, through first person accounts of not only persecution, but the resilience of survival. This exhibit was created by Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust museum. Alongside the exhibit will be stories of Holocaust Survivors and their families from Champaign County. Both exhibits have been printed by Hillel at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and have previously been displayed at the Urbana-Champaign campus. These examples of CU residents that have experienced the tragedy of the Shoah help give viewers a deeper awareness of its long reaching effects.
“Through the haunting echoes of history, this exhibit stands as a testament to resilience, a warning against hatred, and a call to remember the past. This exhibit brings a connection to the local community, sharing an experience to guide us towards a better future.” - Courtney Smith, HEC Committee Chair
“We carry an important role of educating future generations about the horrors of the past, so we can avoid them from recurring in the future,” Said Erez Cohen, UIUC Hillel’s executive director. “There are survivors and veterans of WWII and their family members, living in our county. They are all still affected by these 80 year old atrocities.”
About the Champaign-Urbana Jewish Federation (CUJF)
CUJF enriches Jewish life and builds strong community connections through programming, outreach, and support for cultural initiatives in the Champaign-Urbana area. The CUJF Holocaust Education Center serves as a resource to help school systems comply with the 1990 Illinois state mandate to teach about the Holocaust in schools. The committee is dedicated to providing assistance to all individuals in the greater Champaign-Urbana area who wish to address the universal lessons to be learned from the Holocaust.