Women in the Holocaust exhibit opens

A new exhibit focusing the experiences of women in the Holocaust is opening at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie.

“Spots of Light: To be a Woman in the Holocaust” is the first international exhibit to focus exclusively on women.

The large-scale video-art based exhibit conveys the strength, initiative and courage of women who maintained the values that are the foundation of humanity: motherhood, friendship, faith and love.

More than 2 million women were murdered during the Holocaust. Jewish women inhabited a society that was largely conservative and patriarchal, with males as heads of households and women fulfilling traditional roles at home or helping to make a living. Jewish women assumed the main family role best described as the “affirmation of life” — the attempt to survive in any situation.

“The stories of these remarkable women are so beautifully and poignantly conveyed that we feel an immediate connection,” said Richard S. Hirschhaut, executive director of the museum. “The women featured are not mere statistics — they are our mothers, our sisters and our daughters.”

The exhibit, opening Friday, June 24, includes works of art, a video installation, heirlooms and artifacts.