The Imperial War Museum’s Holocaust exhibition is to undergo a multi-million pound expansion and redevelopment, thanks to support from the Pears Foundation.

The charity has pledged to donate £5 million to the museum’s London site in order to renew its 15-year-old Shoah exhibit, which welcomes more than one million visitors every year. This will go towards increasing the number of personal stories and survivors’ testimonies featured, and adding to the objects and original material already on display.

“Our family is delighted to be supporting this important project,” said Trevor Pears, executive chair of the Pears Foundation.

“We strongly believe that the refurbishment of the Holocaust exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London has the potential to be of ground-breaking importance in the way the Holocaust is taught, contextualised and understood, both nationally and internationally.”

The new exhibition, which will cost £15 million in total to redevelop, will be open to the public from 2021.

Meanwhile, the Imperial War Museum has announced a bid to house the new Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre, which is being planned by the government alongside the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation.

Diane Lees, director of the museum, said: “We are hugely supportive of the initiatives laid out by the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation and wish to play our part to ensure that Britain has a permanent fitting memorial and meaningful educational resources for generations to come.

“The Imperial War Museum provides the right context, expertise and place for this work.”