Illinois Holocaust & Genocide Commission

The Illinois Holocaust and Genocide Commission promotes and provides guidance on Holocaust and genocide education and commemoration across  the State. The Commission offers educators and public and private  institutions information and recommendations regarding Holocaust and genocide educational programs, materials, and resources. In addition, the  Commission coordinates educational and commemorative events in order to advance awareness about the crimes perpetrated by the Nazi regime, and  about other genocides throughout history and today.

Genocide is defined in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.