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Auschwitz goes virtual with new educational vr tour.

As well as allowing people to look around rooms freely, the film features survivor testimony, pictures, and drone footage

BY Daniel Ben-David

• Holocaust education
• Israel Education
• Second World War

The first ever virtual reality tour of Auschwitz concentration camp will have its UK premiere next week, at an event attended by members of the House of Lords and other community and organisational leaders. 

The film, “Triumph of the Spirit 360” is experienced wearing a virtual reality (VR) headset, enabling participants to embark on a 50-minute, 360° guided tour of the infamous Nazi death camp.  

As well as allowing people to look around rooms freely, the film features survivor testimony, pictures, and drone footage, with narration by world-renown speaker and Holocaust researcher Rabbi Israel Goldwasser. 

VR Auschwitz

A group of Israelis watch “Triumph of the Spirit 360” (courtesy)

The film had originally been created for those physically unable to make the journey or for young people growing up in an Orthodox community who, unlike their secular counterparts, do not have trips to Auschwitz built into their school curriculum as part of Holocaust education. 

An Israeli ultra-Orthodox mother, Miriam Cohen, 30, had the idea for the project three years ago. 

She told the JC: “I grew up in a village and when I was 17 all the kids went to Poland, but I couldn’t go because I was in an ultra-Orthodox school. When they came back with this profound emotional experience, I felt like I had missed out on something very special, and that’s when I decided I was going to make it there.” 

Since the summer of 2022, the film is increasingly being shown to secular high school students who now also will not make the trip to Auschwitz due to an ongoing political spat between Israel and Poland. 

The film, which has been viewed by over 70,000 people in Israel to critical acclaim, is open to all who wish to experience it. 

Mrs Cohen said: “After showing it to students, it started to spread all over Israel. We’ve had requests from the military, we’ve shown it to the police, high-tech events, to schools, to the old, the young, Orthodox and non. 

IDF soldiers watching the film (courtesy)

“The goal is to bring this experience, which can be so powerful and profound, to all those who cannot go and to as many people as possible,” 

Auschwitz VR

A virtual reality camera capturing one of the rooms in Auschwitz concentration camp (courtesy)

As well as the harrowing testimonies, pictures, music, and never-before-seen drone footage, the experience is made all the more powerful because, according to Mrs Cohen, you experience the camps alone with only the guide. 

She said: “When you go with friends, especially young people, you don’t always have the opportunity to capture and process everything. You’re taking selfies, distracted by friends, or worried about being judged. This experience allows you to be alone with the reality of the camp and to really understand it, and that way be moved by it. 

“One of our goals is to connect young people to their Jewish identity. Another is to connect people to this deep place in their heart, not to take strength but to give it, and hope and power,” 

A group of Israelis watch Triumph of the Spirit 360 (courtesy)

Three Israeli ultra-Orthodox mothers are heading the project. Mrs Cohen, a former actress, is the director and producer of the film. Chani Kopolowitz is the project manager in Israel and Yuti Neiman is the technology expert and editor.  

Mrs Cohen said: “In the beginning, there were several challenges. Although everyone we approached in Israel really liked the idea, they said that VR wouldn’t work because it was typically for short experiences. Then they told us that we couldn’t go to Poland during Covid. 

“But eventually, we made contact with the director of Auschwitz who was very touched by the project and granted us special permission to film inside the camp.”  

A virtual reality camera stands next to a barbed wire fence on the grounds of Auschwitz concentration camp (courtesy)

The film’s footage was captured over three days while Auschwitz was closed off to visitors during the Covid19 pandemic. 

“It was surreal to be alone in the camp. It’s not something that can be described in words, it must be experienced for oneself. 

“Triumph of the Spirit 360 provides a powerfully emotive experience not least because you’re listening to survivors’ stories overlayed in the very same rooms they occurred in. 

“In a world with fewer and fewer survivors, I wanted to put the Holocaust back in front,” Mrs Cohen said. “As a kid I used to see survivors on the bus with their numbers tattooed to their forearm, but we don’t see them anymore. 

“I saw survivors, but my children won’t. There are six million reasons pushing me into this project.” 

Two girls hold hands as they watch Triumph of the Spirit 360 (courtesy)

The UK premiere of “Triumph of the Spirit 360” will take place on Tuesday, January 31 with 100 guests, each with their own headset. Several high-profile figures are expected to attend, including Lord Eric Pickles, Lord Howard Leigh, Lord David Wolfson, and various heads of Jewish communal and Holocaust organisations.

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This Powerful VR Holocaust Exhibit Will Let You Tour Auschwitz With Survivors

The exhibit opened in January 2022 at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Chicago.

For the first time ever, a museum is using virtual reality (VR) to bring Holocaust stories into the modern age, with the hopes that its history will never be forgotten.

Chicago's Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center debuted the world's first VR Holocaust memorial experience in 2022. With 360-degree sound and visuals, visitors to the museum will be guided around present-day preserved concentration camps by the people who survived them.

"The participant does not just see and hear the Holocaust Survivors' stories through a screen," Susan Abrams, former CEO of Illinois Holocaust Museum, said in a statement shared with Travel + Leisure . "Our VR technology transports the participants back to Holocaust sites today as they take a tour through one of the darkest chapters in history."

The experience includes two different VR films which have been recognized at film festivals like South by Southwest, the Nashville Film Festival, and the Vancouver International Film Festival.

Each of the two films is about 15 minutes long and follows a different Holocaust survivor. The first, "A Promise Kept," follows 13-year-old Fritzie Fritzshall as she "fulfills her promise to the 599 women who saved her life while imprisoned together." And "Don't Forget Me" follows George Brent's journey through the Auschwitz, Mauthausen, and Ebensee concentration camps.

According to the exhibit's online description , the museum is using the technology to "revolutionize the fields of Holocaust memory and education" in "ways that will engage audiences well into the future,"

The VR videos are just one of the ways that the museum is using new technology to preserve the stories of survivors. At the museum, visitors can also "talk" to Holocaust survivors through holograms.

The exhibit has a film showing every half hour from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.". Advance reservations for the experience are required and available to book online .

Cailey Rizzo is a contributing writer for Travel + Leisure, currently based in Brooklyn. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram , or at caileyrizzo.com .

The Holocaust: History and Memory

Virtual tour.

Suitable for classroom use or by families and individuals, this virtual tour, hosted on Google Arts & Culture , allows visitors to explore nine interactive galleries at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. The experience offers a chronological narrative of the Holocaust through encounters with historical artifacts and photographs. Visitors will also see one of the Museum’s conservation labs, allowing them to examine how staff preserve and present Holocaust history.

Preview scenes from the virtual tour

360 view of the Hall of Witness

360 view of a railcar used for deportations to killing centers

Historical photo: the Lodz ghetto

Artifact: Desecrated Torah scrolls

Artifact: a young boy's stuffed bear in one of the Museum's conservation labs

Lesson Plan

Lesson length: One to two class periods

In this lesson , students examine how the Museum uses artifacts and photographs from its collections to present the history of the Holocaust and memorialize its victims—including artifacts and photographs that illustrate important aspects of Holocaust history such as Torah scrolls rescued during Kristallnacht, a train car, prisoner barracks from Auschwitz, and a gas chamber model. Students also tour the Museum's architecture and discuss what makes the Museum a living memorial. Through their exploration of the Museum's exhibitions, students gain a greater understanding of key events and topics related to the Holocaust and are able to explain the systematic nature, scope, and consequences of the Holocaust.

Lesson Plan (PDF)

Worksheet (PDF)

This virtual field trip and lesson were adapted from an activity created in conjunction with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

A previous version of this virtual field trip hosted on Google Expeditions is no longer supported.

This Section

Explore lesson plans and training materials organized by theme to use in your classroom.

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Virtual Reality Brings New Look at the Holocaust

Through the innovative VR film “Triumph of the Spirit,” viewers in Jerusalem can travel virtually into the infamous concentration and death camp Auschwitz for a one-hour tour guided by Orthodox Holocaust historian Rabbi Israel Goldwasser

An innovative virtual reality film about the Holocaust has launched in Jerusalem.

The hour-long film, Triumph of the Spirit , was created by a team of three Orthodox Jewish women and a rabbi historian who serves as the movie’s narrator. It is designed to appeal to a global audience of any race, nationality, religion, or background.

The film, being shown in a dedicated space beneath Jerusalem’s Mamilla Mall, enables viewers to travel virtually to the infamous concentration and death camp Auschwitz in southern Poland and to feel as if they are physically standing there next to the narrator, Holocaust historian Rabbi Israel Goldwasser.

The production values are so high that every detail, down to each blade of grass, can be seen as vividly as in reality. Viewers can turn 360 degrees for a full view of everything around them.

The film was shot over three days in 2021, at the height of the COVID pandemic, by a dedicated team of three women, all mothers of young children.

Film director Miriam Cohen was pregnant, producer Chani Kopilowitz left a nursing baby at home, and editor Yutty Naiman had three children. With many modes of transport shut down during the pandemic, it took the women over 27 hours to reach the site from Israel. The shoot was made more difficult by a lack of food and drink at the site, and Cohen said her feet bled because she had nowhere to sit.

The Nazis established the concentration camp at Auschwitz in 1940 and tortured and killed an estimated 1 million Jews there, as well as about 100,000 others, including Polish political prisoners, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and Sinti people, and others.

The film’s three creators each had a background in making movies for Orthodox women.

They said they were inspired to create Triumph of the Spirit because while secular schools in Israel regularly took students on educational trips to Poland, Orthodox schools did not.

The women felt that Holocaust education was too crucial for Orthodox schoolchildren to miss, and resolved to create an experience that would bring viewers as close as possible to being there.

They began fundraising for the film through family and friends and persuaded the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum administration to give them access to the site for three days in May 2021.

There they used drones to film a 360-degree panoramic view, while Goldwasser walked through the camp, explaining what happened in each area. The editors added survivor accounts to this.

In one particularly moving scene, a survivor describes how he despaired at the bleak camp conditions and resolved to die one night by throwing himself onto the camp’s electric fence.

As he ran towards the fence, however, he heard other prisoners singing songs of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival commemorating the community’s survival during ancient Greek persecution.

The songs stopped him in his tracks, infusing him with a feeling of being “bolted to the ground.” At that moment, he chose to continue living, he said.

Cohen told The Media Line that the scene had convinced a teenage girl who watched the pilot to continue living. She wrote to the creators, saying that she had tried several times to commit suicide, but that if the camp survivor could continue living “without a family, a mother, a father, and friends, alone in the entire world, then I can too.”

Goldwasser narrated the film in Hebrew, and it was then dubbed into English.

“I’ve had the honor of leading dozens of groups through Auschwitz, but this time, I felt this was the most powerful experience of all,” Goldwasser told The Media Line. He said it felt as if “the Jewish souls” who died in the camp were themselves “guiding me.”

The film ends with scenes of Israeli soldiers at the Western Wall in Jerusalem singing “Hatikvah” (“The Hope”), Israel’s national anthem. “We felt we could not leave viewers there” in Auschwitz, but rather “had to bring it back to Israel,” Cohen said.

We went in there with much respect. We felt that the Shoah [the Holocaust] is holy; you can’t touch it. NEXT FROM Top Stories MORE FROM Top Stories By Region As Iran Launched Massive Attack Against Israel, Hizbullah Watched and Learned 04/16/2024 Top Stories Historic Iran-Israel Confrontation Reveals Deepening Russo-Iranian Ties 04/16/2024

Speaking of filming and completing the project, Cohen said, “We went in there with much respect. We felt that the Shoah [the Holocaust] is holy; you can’t touch it.” As a result, they did not add any special effects, other than in one scene in which they showed how thick the black smoke was from the gas chambers.

As time goes on and the survivors pass away, Cohen said, “Memories are changing to history.”

“The difference between history and memory is that [survivors] heard, felt, and smelt something inside of them. History, by contrast, is outside of you,” she said.

The VR movie, Cohen believes, inserts “life into history and changes it into memory,” helping viewers go through a profound “emotional experience.”

Cohen said she was shocked at how little some viewers knew of the Holocaust. One viewer from Austria had never heard of the SS, the Nazi organization that served as Hitler’s personal bodyguard and executor of special projects, including the torture and murder of 6 million Jews.

Auschwitz survivors have expressed their gratitude for the film, Cohen said. One told Cohen she could shut her eyes and “know that when my friends and I are no longer here, someone will continue to tell our story.”

Cohen, Kapilowitz, and Naiman are hoping for additional funding to bring Triumph of the Spirit to schools and workplaces. Tickets to see the film cost 75 shekels each.

Virtual reality brings Holocaust history to future generations

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The Holocaust on the Web

Virtual tours.

Websites that include virtual tours allow you to empathize with the victims, of the Holocaust by allowing you to see where the victims were and what they saw.  Virtual tours also allow you to see/ learn about the layout of locations including concentration camps without actually having to travel to those places.

Auschwitz Scrapbook

This website includes a virtual tour of the concentration camps: Auschwitz, Monowitz, and Oswiecim. Once you pick which location you want to view, you then can click on links to see the entrances, gates, gas chambers, etc. of each location through a series of hyperlinks. You have the choice of where you want to see/ “be” in the camp.

This website preserves the memory of the Holocaust by preserving the memory of three concentration camps built and used during the Holocaust. The virtual tours let users click on a series of hyperlinks in order to see the layout of the concentration camps and feel like you are walking through the concentration camps, while in your own home. You can choose which aspect of the Holocaust you want to learn about and see the layout of without actually having to travel to Europe.

A Teachers Guide to the Holocaust

This website presents a series of virtual tours of the Auschwitz concentration camp, including a tour of the Main Entrance, Gas Chamber, “Wall of Death,” and many more. When choosing a tour, AUS2S (1)   such as this one of an Auschwitz gas chamber, AUS3S (1)  or this one of the “Wall of Death” in Auschwitz. You have the choice to scroll where on that tour you want to “move” to and what you want to see/ learn about.

This website helps preserve the memory of the Holocaust by memorializing one of the largest and most famous concentration camps. The virtual tours allow people to see what Auschwitz looks like long after all of the buildings and fences are old and worn. Although the location can be cared for, how long will people try to keep the area kept? Photographs, videos, and virtual tours allow for the area to always look as it did during the Holocaust. This website allows you to learn about the different aspects of Auschwitz by seeing the layout of the camp, without actually having to visit the camp.

Virtual Auschwitz Map  

Remembering Auschwitz

While many virtual tours of concentration camps, especially Auschwitz, exist; this site provides one of the most interactive. The tour actually allows the visitor to choose a site in the camp and navigate around a certain distance from that area. The experience is much like standing in a single spot on the camp and turning in circles to get a full view of the surrounding. A user may also choose to “walk” a short distance from the spot on which they entered the tour to get a slightly different perspective on the surroundings. This  set up is the perfect example of the empathetic interaction the site is trying to elicit from the visitor. The site is getting you to feel like you’re actually standing in the camp where the victims were or what it would be like to stand there today and try to process all you’re seeing.

Student analysis of websites about the Holocaust

Holocaust museum's virtual reality exhibit is 'so realistic'

SKOKIE, Ill. — As time passes and it becomes increasingly difficult to document the firsthand accounts of Holocaust survivors as their numbers wane, the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is using cutting-edge technology to preserve the testimonies of some of the remaining survivors.

The museum says 250,000 to 400,000 survivors are still alive worldwide, and it trains an eye on them in a first-of-its-kind double   exhibition. One of the exhibitions, “The Journey Back: A VR Experience,” expands the field of Holocaust memory through transportive storytelling, while “The Abe & Ida Cooper Survivor Stories Experience” allows visitors to ask questions of survivors’ holograms and get real-time responses based on about 40 hours of recorded interviews.

The Cooper exhibit features Dimensions in Testimony, developed by  USC Shoah Foundation  in association with the Illinois museum.

In the virtual reality experience, visitors wearing headsets are led by Holocaust survivors Fritzie Fritzshall or George Brent through the historical and current-day Auschwitz, Mauthausen and Ebensee concentration camps.

Fritzshall, who died last year, traveled back to Auschwitz in 2018 to make the virtual reality film. Because Brent was too fragile to travel to Europe, the filmmakers used green-screen technology to place him in the locations he describes, such as concentration camp barracks. 

As the survivors share their harrowing experiences, visitors sit in a blue swivel chair that helps them control their 360-degree experiences. 

The 12-minute film featuring Brent, 93, begins with him sharing how he found a picture of his father and another one of himself in “The Auschwitz Album,” a book he discovered in a bookstore in 1981.

“I ran with them to show people that here is the proof that I really was in Auschwitz,” he recalls in the film.

Ebensee, a concentration camp in Austria where Brent was sent at age 15, is now a suburban town, but the VR film ensures that the historical grounds are preserved, he said. 

“What struck me is the change these places go through over the years, and what I am afraid of is eventually they will disappear,” he said in an interview.  

Susan Abrams, the CEO of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, said it gives her chills to think that such technology is available while survivors are still alive to share their stories. 

Being immersed in a virtual reality headset “moves people in a different way,” she said.

“Instead of passively reading something or watching something, you are engaged in it,” she added. “If the technology is working well, which it does, it fades into the background.”

But it’s not all about the tech; it’s also about the powerful historical story, she said.

“When George’s family experienced it for the first time, I was so struck and so proud when one of them said: ‘Wow, I’ve heard the story so many times. But until I had that headset on and I was standing there with him, I don’t think I ever experienced it quite like this.’”

Brent and his family were put on a train to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland in May 1944 from their home in the former Téscö, Hungary, which is part of present-day Ukraine. When they arrived, Brent and his father were ordered to work, and his mother and younger brother were killed in the gas chambers. 

In the film, he describes his journey to Auschwitz-Birkenau as the worst three days of his life. He said the virtual reality experience, which tries to capture the train ride by making viewers feel as though they are in the boxcar surrounded by people crying, coughing and screaming, “is so realistic.”

Divine Olikaju, 15, a student at the Chicago Military Academy, tried the virtual reality experience on a field trip to the museum. He and his classmates also met Brent, who happened to be there.

“Just being in the boxcar at the VR place, I felt kind of scared myself, being cramped among all the people,” he said. “Just being in there, it was very immersive. I think it will be a useful tool to teach other kids what happened.” 

Abrams said firsthand testimonies are the “most powerful way to develop empathy and an understanding of our common humanity,” adding that the museum is making three more virtual reality films. 

“At this moment in time, when we’re seeing a rise in [not only] antisemitism but in all forms of hatred and bigotry, we’re so, so grateful to be able to have these stories to share,” she said. “Technology will make it scalable, too, so that ultimately millions can have these experiences.”

Emma Barnett is a 2024 NBC News campaign embed.

'You see the shoes of the people ... all of their stuff': Virtual reality highlights Holocaust history

Viewers get a guided tour of Jewish life in Poland before the Holocaust, visit Auschwitz and then tour Israel while hearing survivor stories

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JERUSALEM — For those who survived the Holocaust, the memories can never be erased, but their generation is dying out. Educators and historians are looking for new ways to keep their experience alive and connect to younger people.

With the film “Triumph of the Spirit,” seen through a virtual reality headset, viewers find themselves in the Auschwitz Nazi death camp.

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More than 1.1 million people, around 90 per cent of them Jewish, were killed at Auschwitz, one of a network of camps run by Nazi Germany on occupied Polish soil during World War Two.

The site is open to visitors as a memorial and museum. Using virtual reality, viewers see the same things without traveling.

“You see the shoes of the people, you see … all of their stuff,” said David Bitton, a 16-year-old Jewish seminary student after watching the film in Jerusalem. “When you watch it it’s like a nightmare that you don’t want to be in.”

A report by the World Zionist Organization ahead of Friday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day describes a rise in global anti-Semitism after the COVID-19 pandemic created a “new reality” as activity diverted to social networks.

Indeed, nearly a quarter of Dutch people born after 1980 believe the Holocaust was a myth or that the number of its victims was greatly exaggerated, a survey published this week by an organization working to secure material compensation for survivors showed.

The Claims Conference's Netherlands Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Survey, released today, found the numbers regarding Holocaust denial and distortion were, sadly, higher than in our previous countries surveyed #HolocaustEducation The complete study https://t.co/qAdfacY0M8 pic.twitter.com/orGnOB6IOt — Claims Conference (@ClaimsCon) January 25, 2023

Get a dash of perspective along with the trending news of the day in a very readable format.

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The three film-makers behind the project hope that technologies like VR will have a positive impact. They are offering the experience to groups who can book a screening and individual users can watch the film at a mall in Jerusalem.

“The fact that … young people are into this technology, it helps us capture their attention and then when they put these headsets on, that’s it,” said co-creator Miriam Cohen.

Viewers get a guided tour of Jewish life in Poland before the Holocaust, visit the Nazi extermination camp and then a tour of Israel while hearing survivor stories.

For Menachem Haberman, 95, who was sent to Auschwitz in 1944 on a cattle train, the immersive experience was overwhelming. He cried as he removed the VR goggles.

#75Survivors Faces of Life After the Holocaust Menachem Haberman was born in Orlová, Czechoslovakia (today Ukraine), in 1927. Menachem and his family were relocated to the Munkacs ghetto. Menachem was deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. pic.twitter.com/EZ31Y9Mcrv — Yad Vashem (@yadvashem) June 3, 2020

His mother and six siblings were killed in the camp’s gas chambers. He survived and was sent to a different concentration camp that was liberated in 1945. He later moved to Israel.

He recalled an area where medical experiments were conducted on prisoners and a wall in front of which people were shot.

“I felt like I returned to that same period from the start,” he said. “I saw all these things, and I was reminded of some things that to this day I can’t forget.”

(Reporting by Emily Rose; Editing by Alison Williams)

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Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum introduces virtual tour

Israeli companies behind the project and holocaust survivors say the new virtual tour provides a modern solution to see the camp in a way that's accessible and convenient for everyone.

• Real-life Casablanca: Moroccan-Israeli saved thousands of Jews during Holocaust
• The power of a written word: Holocaust survivors convey messages for future generations
• Berlin: A thriving modern capital confronting its dark past

The future of Holocaust education

"The idea was to make the place accessible so that it would not be closed off to the world. The tour provides a personal experience, and viewers can ask the guide questions, for example."

A new guide for a new tour

"It's a huge thing to bring Auschwitz to Africa or to countries in the Middle East, after the Abraham Accords. Auschwitz becomes accessible to new audiences."

Digital tour will lead to more physical tours

"We live in a digital world with Holocaust denial, hatred, racism, and antisemitism on the rise—and the internet plays a significant role in that.”

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A Virtual Tour of Auschwitz: On Every Day Since…

Illustrated Tour of Auschwitz

A Virtual Tour of Auschwitz

On every day since… a christian at auschwitz, welcome to my journal.

“The same day I saw my first horror camp, I visited every nook and cranny. I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify about these things in case there ever grew up at home the belief or assumption that the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda.”

– General Dwight D. Eisenhower

On every day since I first saw Auschwitz, I have wept.

– The Author

Introduction

What follows here is the written and photographic record of five days spent visiting two Nazi concentration camps in and near Oswiecim, Poland in September 1993. Known as Auschwitz and Birkenau, the two camps were liberated in January 1945. The remains of the camps, the survivors’ and liberators’ testimonies, and the documentary evidence leave no doubt as to the enormity of the crimes against humanity which were committed there. This journal, which started out as a letter to my friend of 30 years, John Anderson Parker, is a work in progress and an expression of the belief that we must never forget .

Parts of this document will change. Most changes will occur in Afterwords as matters of fact are corrected and puzzles are solved. New or revised graphics will appear in various sections from time to time. If the project goes as hoped and a return trip is made possible, the quality and scope of the work will be improved.

Comments and reactions are welcome by [email protected] via e-mail.

© 1993, Stuart C. Nichols

Illustrated Tour of Auschwitz , where you can just view the pictures Stuart took.

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Remember. Zachor. Sich erinnern.

Remember.org helps people find the best digital resources, connecting them through a collaborative learning structure since 1994. If you'd like to share your story on Remember.org, all we ask is that you give permission to students and teachers to use the materials in a non-commercial setting. Founded April 25, 1995 as a "Cybrary of the Holocaust". Content created by Community. THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT . History Channel ABC PBS CNET One World Live New York Times Apple Adobe Copyright 1995-2024 Remember.org. All Rights Reserved. Publisher: Dunn Simply

APA Citation

Dunn, M. D. (Ed.). (95, April 25). Remember.org - The Holocaust History - A People's and Survivors' History. Retrieved February 28, 2022, from remember.org

MLA Citation

Virtual Reality Bring Holocaust History To Future Generations

With the film "Triumph of the Spirit", seen through a virtual reality headset, viewers find themselves in the Auschwitz Nazi death camp.

Film-makers behind the project hope that technologies like VR will have a positive impact.

For those who survived the Holocaust, the memories can never be erased, but their generation is dying out. Educators and historians are looking for new ways to keep their experience alive and connect to younger people.

More than 1.1 million people, around 90 per cent of them Jewish, were killed at Auschwitz, one of a network of camps run by Nazi Germany on occupied Polish soil during World War Two.

The site is open to visitors as a memorial and museum. Using virtual reality, viewers see the same things without travelling.

"You see the shoes of the people, you see ... all of their stuff," said David Bitton, a 16-year-old Jewish seminary student after watching the film in Jerusalem. "When you watch it it's like a nightmare that you don't want to be in."

A report by the World Zionist Organization ahead of Friday's International Holocaust Remembrance Day describes a rise in global anti-Semitism after the COVID-19 pandemic created a "new reality" as activity diverted to social networks.

Indeed, nearly a quarter of Dutch people born after 1980 believe the Holocaust was a myth or that the number of its victims was greatly exaggerated, a survey published this week by an organisation working to secure material compensation for survivors showed.

The three film-makers behind the project hope that technologies like VR will have a positive impact. They are offering the experience to groups who can book a screening and individual users can watch the film at a mall in Jerusalem.

"The fact that ... young people are into this technology, it helps us capture their attention and then when they put these headsets on, that's it," said co-creator Miriam Cohen.

Viewers get a guided tour of Jewish life in Poland before the Holocaust, visit the Nazi extermination camp and then a tour of Israel while hearing survivor stories.

A still image shows an aerial view of Auschwitz

For Menachem Haberman, 95, who was sent to Auschwitz in 1944 on a cattle train, the immersive experience was overwhelming. He cried as he removed the VR goggles.

His mother and six siblings were killed in the camp's gas chambers. He survived and was sent to a different concentration camp that was liberated in 1945. He later moved to Israel.

He recalled an area where medical experiments were conducted on prisoners and a wall in front of which people were shot.

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"I felt like I returned to that same period from the start," he said. "I saw all these things, and I was reminded of some things that to this day I can't forget."

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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• 360° virtual tour for learning about, and teaching, the Holocaust

360° virtual tour for learning about, and teaching, the Holocaust

Before you is a 360-degree virtual space for learning about, and teaching, the Holocaust.

This space takes the learners on a chronological journey that tells the story of the Holocaust: the lives of Jews before the Holocaust, thriving communities and culture, the persecution of the Jews, anti-Jewish legislation and edicts, establishment of the camps, deportations, mass murder, uprisings, rescue stories, liberation and the return to life. All these are told and taught through a variety of vantage points and learning styles - historical videos, animated concepts, survivor testimony, historical figures and more.

The space consists of six rooms that outline the story of the Holocaust, covering the following themes: Nazi ideology and the Jews of Germany; The Occupation of Poland and Life in the Ghetto; The Beginning of Systematic  Murder and Its Spread to Poland; The Europe-wide Murder of the Jews; Historical Figures of the Holocaust; Liberation and a New Life. In each room you can find suggestions for classroom discussion, classroom activities or homework - all based on the videos and testimonies presented.

The learning is designed to be modular and fundamentally experiential. The learners can go through the rooms and study them in order, or enter a specific room (from the map or location menu) and focus on that particular topic, viewing the videos within it. In addition teachers, and educators in informal education frameworks can choose videos and questions from various rooms, constructing a personal route, and then instruct the student to carry out the appropriate research.

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Virtual Tours of Auschwitz

Take a step into history by taking virtual tour of Auschwitz.  The Auschwitz Virtual Tour entails regular online sessions about the former Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. This is not a regular webinar or seminar. In fact, it is the most faithful representation of a physical visit to the Auschwitz memorial site. The delivery is significantly augmented by historical footage, histories of former prisoners, visualizations, aerial overviews, and contemporary filming.

Thanks to the use of virtual reality tools officially created by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, we are able to reach every single spot and space at the memorial site.

These events are brought to you by the MultiCultural & Co-Curricular Department in partnership with the East Valley Jewish Community Center. 

Each tour is 2 hours and spaces are limited so be sure to RSVP now!

Event Dates: 

• Tuesday, April 5, 1 - 3 p.m.
• Tuesday, April 12, 9:30 - 11:30 a.m.
• Saturday, April 23, 9:30 - 11:30 a.m.

The Holocaust: History and Memory

Explore the united states holocaust memorial museum, a living memorial that encourages visitors to remember, reflect, and act to confront hate and promote human dignity. in this virtual tour you will examine how the museum preserves and presents holocaust history.

By United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Hall of Witness

Welcome to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum—America’s national institution for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history and the country’s memorial to the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust. [Click and drag to explore.]

You are standing in the center of the museum in the Hall of Witness, a three-story, sky-lit gathering place—a place meant to separate visitors from the outside world and prepare them to experience the museum. [Click and drag to explore.]

Skylight and Glass Bridges United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Skylight and Glass Bridges

In this hall, there isn’t a clear view of the sky—metal beams create a cage-like barrier. The skylight isn’t atop the building—it presses down upon visitors. Above, ghostlike figures cross over glass bridges, lending an unsettling air of being watched.

“You Are My Witnesses” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

“You Are My Witnesses”

On the West wall of the Hall of Witness are words taken from the Bible’s book of Isaiah. This quote suggests a profound and meaningful role for the visitor—to bear witness is not only to pay attention but to truthfully testify to others about what one saw.

Arches, Red Brick and Distorted Perspective United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Arches, Red Brick and Distorted Perspective

Red brick archways are plentiful in the Hall of Witness, and skewed lines distort visual perspectives. Camp architecture, like the entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau shown here, served as inspiration.

The Jews of Ejszyszki and the Holocaust

In 1933, Jews lived in every country of Europe. The largest Jewish populations were in eastern Europe where many lived in predominantly Jewish towns or villages, called shtetls. These photos, taken before the Holocaust, show people from the shtetl of Ejszyszki (Eh-Shish-Kee).  [Click and drag to explore.]

Approximately nine million Jews lived in countries occupied by or allied with Nazi Germany during World War II. By the war’s end, two out of every three European Jews were dead, including almost all of Ejszyszki’s Jews. [Click and drag to explore.]

Reconstructing the Past, Memorializing the Victims United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Reconstructing the Past, Memorializing the Victims

Moshe Sonenson holds his daughter Yaffa. They were among only a handful of survivors from Ejszyszki. As an adult, Yaffa gathered the approximately 1,000 photographs you see here from more than 100 families torn apart by the Holocaust. 

Young Girls in Ejszyszki United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Young Girls in Ejszyszki

Jews had lived in Ejszyszki for almost 900 years before they were murdered by the Germans and collaborators in 1941. Photographs in this exhibit document the rich religious, cultural, economic, and familial life of a Jewish community that once existed.

Mickey Mouse Proposes United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Mickey Mouse Proposes

Esther Lapp (pictured here) and her family were among approximately 4,000 Jewish men, women, and children from Ejszyszki and nearby towns who were rounded up by Germans and their collaborators and shot in a mass grave.

“All Walks of Life” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

“All Walks of Life”

Jews could be found in all walks of life: from farmers and factory workers to teachers and doctors. Nazi Germany’s military conquests made almost all European Jews potential victims of the Holocaust.

Kristallnacht: The Night of Broken Glass

After years of antisemitic harassment and discrimination, on November 9–10, 1938, the Nazi-German state organized a nationwide outbreak of violence against the Jewish community in Germany. Nazis called it Kristallnacht (“Crystal Night”).  [Click and drag to explore.]

During Kristallnacht, Nazi gangs destroyed hundreds of synagogues and more than 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses. Almost 30,000 Jews were arrested without charge and held in concentration camps and prisons. They were released only if they agreed to leave Germany. [Click and drag to explore.]

Desecrated Torah Scrolls United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Desecrated Torah Scrolls

These Torah scrolls, from synagogues in Vienna and Marburg, were desecrated during Kristallnacht. The Torah (books of Moses) is the foundation of Jewish religious faith. The scrolls here were retrieved by German individuals and safeguarded until after the war. 

Neighbors Watch a Synagogue Burn United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Neighbors Watch a Synagogue Burn

Nazis and their collaborators destroyed hundreds of synagogues (Jewish temples) throughout Germany and Austria, often in full view of the public and of local firefighters, who had received orders to intervene only to prevent flames from spreading to nearby buildings. 

Destruction of Jewish-Owned Businesses United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Destruction of Jewish-Owned Businesses

Nazi stormtroopers smashed the windows of Jewish-owned shops and destroyed or looted goods. The government forced Jews to repair damages at their own cost, pay massive fines (totaling almost $7 billion in 2018 ), and close or sell their businesses.

Newly Arrived Prisoners at Buchenwald United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Newly Arrived Prisoners at Buchenwald

Following Kristallnacht, Nazi SS (elite guards) and German police arrested almost 30,000 Jews, transferring most of them to concentration camps where hundreds died from brutal treatment. Most were released on condition that they leave Germany.

Ghettos: Concentration and Isolation

After invading Poland and later the Soviet Union, Germany tried to isolate and control Jews by forcing them to live in marked-off, segregated sections of towns and cities they called ghettos. [Click and drag to explore.] 

The Germans created at least 1,000 ghettos; extreme overcrowding was common, and contagious diseases spread rapidly. People were always hungry. Tens of thousands died in ghettos from illness, starvation, and cold. Between 1942 and 1944, the Germans emptied the ghettos, deporting the Jews to camps and killing centers.  [Click and drag to explore.]

In the Warsaw Ghetto United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

In the Warsaw Ghetto

The largest ghetto was in Warsaw, where—after confiscating their property—the Germans confined more than 400,000 Jews. They were required to wear white armbands with blue Stars of David and were conscripted as forced laborers by Germans and their collaborators.

Segregation and Confinement in the Lodz Ghetto United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Segregation and Confinement in the Lodz Ghetto

Many ghettos were enclosed by fences or walls, with entrances guarded by SS (Nazi elite guards) and police. In Lodz, a trolley for non-Jews ran through the ghetto, fenced off under police guard. Jews were forced to walk over it on a footbridge.

An Act of Resistance United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Documenting History: An Act of Resistance

As Germans and their collaborators deported Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to their deaths, Jews hid a secret archive about life in the ghetto: artwork, photographs, letters, diaries, and official edicts in containers like this milk can.

A Desperate Plea United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

A Desperate Plea

One document from the secret Warsaw ghetto archive was this plea for help. It reads, “Mr. Landau! Rabbi Blumenfeld together with his family are on Stawki Street. They are employed by you. Please save them before it is too late.”

The Railcar: Deportation to the Killing Centers

Beginning in 1942, the Germans systematically deported Jews in railcars like this from across Europe and North Africa to killing centers in German-occupied Poland where they were killed in gas chambers.  [Click and drag to explore.]

There were five killing centers: Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest; the Nazis and their collaborators killed almost 1 million Jews there. [Click and drag to explore.]

Slovakian Officials Deport Local Jews United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Slovakian Officials Deport Local Jews

Up to 100 people were packed into a single freight car; the trip often took days. Tormented by hunger and thirst, extreme temperatures, and with little sanitation, many people, especially young children and the elderly, died on the journey.

Deportation from Würzburg, Germany United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Deportation from Würzburg, Germany

Jewish deportees, carrying a few personal belongings in bundles and suitcases, march through town to the railroad station. Deportations were public events and were often facilitated with help from local police and government authorities.

The Selection Process United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Selection Process

At Auschwitz-Birkenau, guards separated men from women and children. An SS officer (foreground) decided who was capable of forced labor. Babies, children, pregnant women, people with disabilities, elderly sick people were usually sent directly to death in gas chambers.

“Work Makes One Free” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

“Work Makes One Free”

A sign over the entrance to Auschwitz states in German “Work makes one free,” but here the opposite was true. The Nazis used brutal labor as another form of killing. Most prisoners  survived only a few weeks or months.

The Barracks: Conditions in the Camps

Nazi Germany set up some 40,000 camps to imprison millions of people throughout Europe. These sites served a range of purposes, including forced labor, detention of people thought to be “enemies of the state,” and mass murder. Auschwitz was the largest of these camps. [Click and drag to explore.]

The camp system included concentration, extermination, and forced-labor camps. In 1941, the SS ordered more than 250 prefabricated wooden barracks to be shipped to Auschwitz-Birkenau. You are standing inside a partially restored barrack building from that camp.  [Click and drag to explore.]

Liberated Prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Liberated Prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoners were housed in primitive wooden barracks not insulated against heat or cold. Roofs leaked, and straw bedding was soon filthy and wet. Over 500 prisoners could be crowded into each barrack, five or six prisoners per bunk level.

Barracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Barracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau

The Auschwitz-Birkenau camp was vast: 346 acres with 300 barracks and other buildings, 10 miles of barbed wire, and 4 gas chambers with crematoriums. In August 1944, there were 90,000 prisoners and 908 guards.

Dehumanization: Registration and Processing United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Dehumanization: Registration and Processing

Prisoners, like these Jewish women at Auschwitz-Birkenau, were stripped of individual identities, with heads shaved and their names replaced with a number (which, at Auschwitz, was tattooed on the left forearm). They received ill-fitting uniforms with no change of clothing.

Hunger in the Camps United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Hunger in the Camps

Prisoners at the Janowska camp used this bowl to collect their meager rations: watery soup with rotten vegetables and rancid meat, a slice of bread, and a bit of margarine. Diarrhea was common. People weakened by dehydration and hunger fell victim to contagious diseases.

“Final Solution”: Killing Centers and Gas Chambers

This model of crematorium II at Auschwitz-Birkenau was sculpted by Mieczyslaw Stobierski based on contemporary documents and the trial testimonies of Nazi SS (elite guards). Most Jews deported to killing centers were killed in gas chambers soon after their arrival.  [Click and drag to explore.]

The SS constructed four modern crematorium buildings at Auschwitz-Birkenau, each with a disrobing area, a large gas chamber disguised as showers and a cremation area with ovens. As many as 6,000 Jews were gassed each day here. [Click and drag to explore.]

The Undressing Room United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Undressing Room

To prevent panic and resistance, camp guards told victims that they were going to take showers to rid themselves of lice. Guards instructed them to turn over all valuables and to undress. Then they were driven naked into the “showers.”

The Gas Chamber United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Gas Chamber

Once locked inside, up to 2,000 people could be killed within minutes in this gas chamber. Some killing centers used carbon monoxide gas. Auschwitz-Birkenau used a cyanide-based insecticide (Zyklon-B) to kill people.

Plundering and Cremating the Dead United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Plundering and Cremating the Dead

Under guard, prisoners hauled corpses to a nearby room. They burned bodies in ovens or buried them in mass graves. Camp officials plundered gold, personal belongings, and even hair from their victims.

“Extermination Through Work” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

“Extermination Through Work”

Prisoners in camps were also worked to death. Those too ill or too weak to work were condemned to death in the gas chambers. Here, prisoners haul heavy stones up 186 steps on the “staircase of death” at Mauthausen camp.

Hall of Remembrance

This memorial to victims of the Holocaust is a simple, hexagonal, solemn space designed for public ceremonies and individual reflection. The walls are inscribed with names of concentration camps and killing centers and are lined with candles visitors can light.  [Click and drag to explore.]

Narrow openings between the walls let in additional light and provide a glimpse of the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial. An eternal flame burns before an inscription from the Book of Deuteronomy about the importance of bearing witness. [Click and drag to explore.]

The Hall of Remembrance Skylight - This hexagonal space evokes the Star of David badge that the Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust. In contrast to the Hall of Witness, this skylight is partially translucent, shedding a soft, filtered light across the Hall.

Acts of Remembrance United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Acts of Remembrance

Visitors may light memorial candles in the Hall. Lighting candles is a universal symbol of renewed life and an act of remembrance in many cultures.

Why We Remember United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Why We Remember

“Only guard yourself and guard your soul carefully, lest you forget the things your eyes saw. . . . And you shall make them known to your children, and to your children's children.”                                          —Deuteronomy 4:9

Rescuing the Evidence, Preserving the Truth

This is one of the museum’s conservation labs where the many Holocaust-related documents and artifacts in the museum’s collections are treated to prevent their deterioration. The lab is equipped with specialized tools and climate-controlled environments to help preserve them.  [Click and drag to explore.]

Each collection tells a unique and often personal story that enables us to better understand the Holocaust. Without the museum’s ability to preserve these collections, some stories would be lost forever. Here, a conservator examines a young boy's stuffed bear. What is its story? [Click and drag to explore.]

A Very Special Bear United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

A Very Special Bear

Jews fleeing Nazi Germany were not permitted to take valuables with them; so, Hans Butzke’s mother sewed items, including a ring and possibly pearls, inside his bear when they emigrated to Panama. The bear still wears Hans’ baby clothes. 

Rescuing the Evidence United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Rescuing the Evidence

Housed in acid-free archival tissue and an archival box, Hans’ bear awaits treatment in the conservation lab. Holes have worn through the paws; he’s wearing temporary “mittens'' to prevent further loss. Conservators will treat the fabric and reconstruct the paws.

Seeking Refuge United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Seeking Refuge

In March 1938, Nazi Germany annexed Austria. That October, the Butzke family, who lived in Vienna, submitted this form requesting permission to enter Bolivia. Over a year later, they left Vienna, but to Panama (not Bolivia) and later to the United States.

Getting Out United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Getting Out

This document certifies that Netty Butzke paid an emigration tax required by Germany. Sometimes documents like this require treatment to stabilize them for long-term preservation. This treatment can include cleaning off surface dirt and mending tears.

Birkenau Entrance ©USHMM, courtesy of bpk-Bildagentur Ejszyszki ©USHMM, courtesy of The Shtetl Foundation Neighbors Watch Synagogue Burn ©USHMM, courtesy of Trudy Isenberg; Vandalized Business ©National Archives and Records Administration; Buchenwald ©USHMM, courtesy of Robert A. Schmuhl Warsaw Ghetto, ©Bundesarchiv (Bild 101I/134/734/16A); Lodz Ghetto, ©Bundesarchiv (Bild 101I/133/703/20); Milkcan/A Desperate Plea ©USHMM, courtesy of Zydowski Instytut Historyczny imienia Emanuela Ringelbluma Slovakian Deportation ©USHMM, courtesy of Yad Vashem Photo and Film Archives; “Work Will Set You Free” ©USHMM, courtesy of Panstwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau w Oswiecimiu Women on Bunks @USHMM, courtesy of Unknown Russian archive; Birkenau Barracks ©USHMM, courtesy of Mark Chrzanowski; Hungarian Jewish Women @USHMM, courtesy of Yad Vashem (Public Domain); Bowl, ©USHMM “Extermination Through Work” @USHMM, courtesy of Archiv der KZ- Gedenkstaette Mauthausen USHMM=US Holocaust Memorial Museum

State of Deception

United states holocaust memorial museum, voyage of the st. louis.

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Virtual reality tour gives students look at Holocaust

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SULLIVAN, Ind. (AP) — The story of Eva Kor, her message of forgiveness and her lessons from Auschwitz live on through a virtual reality tour experienced by Sullivan High School freshmen.

Kor died July 4 in Krakow, Poland, at age 85 while on her annual CANDLES trip to Auschwitz. “Virtual Reality: An Eva Experience” is an educational program continuing her legacy by taking her story to students across the state.

The Sullivan High School students have been studying Holocaust literature, and as part of their studies, they donned headsets and were transported to the concentration camp through the 360-degree virtual reality tour that included video narrated by Kor.

“What this does is puts students three dimensionally in the four places most central to Eva’s time in Auschwitz,” said Ted Green, producer/director of the documentary, “Eva: A-7063” who also was involved in the development of the virtual reality educational program.

In the tour, Kor takes viewers to the selection platform; the barracks; the “Blood Lab” where the Mengele Twins were experimented on; and the spot where, 50 years after her liberation from Auschwitz, she announced her forgiveness of Mengele and the Nazis.

WFYI and Ted Green Films combined to develop the virtual reality project, funded with a grant from the Indianapolis Rotary Foundation. Originally intended for a limited program at the Indiana Historical Society, it’s now being used to educate students about the Holocaust.

“We’re getting more requests than we can handle,” said Green, who spoke to small groups of students before and after they experienced the virtual tour. He was accompanied by Jessica Chapman, WFYI Eva project distribution and impact manager.

Among the freshmen who took the virtual tour was Jacob Hawkins. “I thought it was very surreal ... you felt like you were standing there (at Auschwitz),” he said. Kor’s story of forgiveness of those who commit such heinous crimes — including medical experiments on twins including Eva and sister Miriam — was “very inspiring.”

Hawkins added, “I don’t know how she did it (forgave the Nazis). I don’t know if I could have done it.”

After taking the virtual tour, student Payton Templeton said, “It felt like you were standing right in the barracks and everywhere Eva had been,” including the “blood lab” where the experiments happened.

She said it helped to know how everything really looked instead of just reading about it.

“It’s really inspiring to know that she was able to forgive the people who did those horrible things to her and her family,” Templeton said. It made her realize “the little things I complain about all the time are not really that important. Much worse things happened to Eva and she was able to forgive everybody.”

The freshmen also have studied items on loan from the Holocaust Museum of Florida and they are working on multimedia research projects they’ll share next month.

Jennifer Smith, Sullivan High School English teacher and library media specialist, said she hopes study of the Holocaust teaches students empathy and the importance of standing up for others regardless of their differences or different points of view.

Kor encouraged the message of hope, healing and humanity, Smith said. Through their studies, she hopes students “will begin to make an empathetic connection to the importance of freedom and justice for all people.”

Green said people will no longer be able to accompany Kor to Auschwitz, “so we wanted this to be sort of the next best thing, the closest way to replicate it.”

The virtual reality tour “has received rave reviews,” he said. “Teachers are saying the impact on their students is profound.”

He tells students all the time, “This is not someone who is rich, or from New York, or Los Angeles, or someone who works for some big organization ... This is a little 4-foot, 9-inch woman from Terre Haute who lived in a modest home.”

And yet, “She was able to make such a huge difference,” Green said.

And that’s what Green and others hope become the takeaway for students. “Maybe I can’t do everything Eva did,” Green said. “But maybe I can answer Eva’s challenge to think of one way to make the world just a little bit better.”

Source: (Terre Haute) Tribune-Star

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View of Auschwitz on Aug. 14, 2018, the 77th anniversary of the Maximilian Kolbe's death.

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EVJCC offers virtual tours of Auschwitz

• Nicole Raz | Staff Writer
• Feb 16, 2021

Three years ago, Rabbi Michael Beyo, the East Valley Jewish Community Center’s CEO, traveled to Auschwitz in person. Last fall, he traveled there again — virtually.

The virtual tour was created by Jerzy Wojcik, who lives in Poland and has been a certified Auschwitz guide and educator for more than 14 years. The pandemic has halted travel and significantly impacted the number of people visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, and Wojcik wanted to ensure people could still experience it.

“Auschwitz education has to be continued,” Wojcik wrote in a Facebook post last July, when he also announced the formation of the virtual tours.

Since launching the project, Wojcik estimates he’s given 50 to 70 tours to people from all around the world. “I think virtual tours give a chance to tell the story of Auschwitz to a much greater and broader audience,” he said, noting that one of the tours was for a group of 250 students from India.

Beyo described the virtual tour as having an even greater impact on him than visiting in person. “Auschwitz-Birkenau is very sterile,” Beyo said. “It’s difficult to imagine that in that same room thousands of people were tortured. So it creates dissonance between what we know from history and what your eyes and your senses experience.”

Wojcik conducts the tours in real time and uses preexisting digital resources, including the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum’s virtual reality panorama, archival historical footage and recordings from drone flights, to accompany his commentary. The tours also include an hour-long pre-tour seminar and a Q&A session.

Wojcik reached out to Beyo late last year to see if the EVJCC would be interested in partnering to promote the virtual tour in the United States and Canada. “I like the East Valley Jewish Community Center,” Wojcik explained. “What can I tell you?”

The EVJCC has a long history and high caliber of Holocaust education as well as established connections in the U.S. and Canada, said Beyo. “It’s easier for us to promote these tours than an individual person sitting in his office in Poland,” Beyo said.

In his first week of scheduling tours, Beyo said he has booked more than 20. The tour is available to groups with a minimum of 25 people, the cost is $30 per person and discounts are available for multiple tours and schools. The EVJCC is also developing partnerships with businesses that would like to participate or sponsor tours.

A group formed by the Arizona Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired will be going on a tour March 2, and Steve Tepper, ACBVI’s executive director, was among several people Beyo invited on a VIP tour Feb. 7 to gauge interest.

Tepper, though not visually impaired, said he knew the tour would work well for his group and clients because of its engaging audio elements and Wojcik’s willingness to provide even more description in his commentary to

make accommodations.

“Having been to two concentration camps, nothing replaces that feeling that you get when you’re standing there,” Tepper said. “But I thought that the tour guide did an unbelievable job of describing where we were, the significance of where we were, and helping contextualize it for the group.”

The first day he sent invitations to board and staff members only, and he received more than 20 RSVPs.

“It hasn’t even gone out to clients yet,” he said. He is finding a lot of interest from people interested in learning more about the Holocaust with a desire to support agencies who are eager to accommodate the visually impaired.

Tepper is one of a few Jewish ACBVI board and staff members, and said there are lessons from the Holocaust for everyone. “One of the stories of the Holocaust is around the bystander and the upstander. And there are multiple parallels to how that exists inside our population,” he said. “Our population on a daily basis is fighting for their ability, fighting for the right to fit into society.”

Now that Holocaust education will be added to the Arizona Department of Education’s administrative code, Beyo believes the virtual tour will become a

“major program” to engage and educate the community.

“This is such a great opportunity to teach Holocaust education in general and specifically about Auschwitz, both during COVID, but also post-COVID,” Beyo said. “There are so many hundreds of thousands — or millions of people maybe — that would want to have that experience, but going to Auschwitz in Poland is not on their bucket list.” JN

The East Valley JCC will host two virtual Auschwitz tours in commemoration of Yom Hashoah. For more information, go to evjcc.org/Auschwitz-tour .

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