Sunday\u2019s ribbon-cutting ceremony drew a crowd of the memorial\u2019s founders, local elected officials and survivors whose stories are included in the new exhibit.<\/p>\n
The Holocaust Memorial\u2019s founders, local elected officials and Holocaust survivors celebrate the grand opening of the memorial\u2019s Education Center, which features immersive technology and virtual reality tools. The Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach <\/p>\n
The new center includes two theaters designed for virtual reality programming and a walkthrough exhibit with 11 informative panels tracing the history of the Holocaust \u2014 including historic family photographs \u2014 and two digital panels on the recent uptick in worldwide antisemitism.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial debuts new technology to keep survivor memories alive<\/a><\/p>\n At the heart of the Education Center, which is a separate building next to the outdoor memorial, is a program called \u201cDimensions in Testimony,\u201d which offers visitors real-time simulated conversations with Holocaust survivors, even long after they\u2019ve died. A face-to-face interaction with a Holocaust survivor is the single most impactful part of someone\u2019s visit to the memorial, according to the memorial\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n The technology-driven exhibit allows people to have a one-on-one conversation with a virtual version of a survivor, based on hundreds of hours of interviews with the real survivor. The immersive installation is meant to look and feel like \u201cyou\u2019re sitting with a survivor and you\u2019re hearing their story,\u201d said Matan Ben-Aviv, chair of the memorial.<\/p>\n As holocaust survivors get older and die, educators around the world are concerned about younger generations having little access to survivor testimonies. There are about 196,600 Jewish Holocaust survivors globally, according to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference).<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have many left,\u201d Ben-Aviv said. \u201cSo this will help preserve that interaction and allow people to hear from survivors, ask some questions, and really get a personal experience in perpetuity.\u201d<\/p>\n Days before the public opening, survivor Jack Waksal sat in the front row of one of the center\u2019s new theaters, talking with a life-sized version of himself.<\/p>\n To complete the installation, Waksal, who is 101, was interviewed for five days, answering over 1,500 questions about his life \u2014what his life was like before the war, how he narrowly escaped death six times, his time in four different concentration camps, and how he rebuilt his life after the war.<\/p>\n Visitors ask the video questions and the virtual survivor responds with answers that draw from the hours of interviews. People can start with a simple question like \u201cWhat was your childhood like?\u201d or \u201cWere you in a concentration camp?\u201d The education center also provides a list of suggested questions for each survivor to help get the conversation rolling.<\/p>\n After learning about Jack\u2019s experience in the concentration camps, in which he mentioned a time he and others tried to escape, the Miami Herald then asked him a follow-up question.<\/p>\n \u201cJack, tell me about your escape from the camps into the forest?\u201d a reporter asked the virtual Jack. A few seconds later, the video responded.<\/p>\n \u201cI cut the wires from the top to the bottom and I took the people out,\u201d the virtual Jack said. \u201cThere were 16 people and somebody got shot right away. After the railroad, they start shooting on us. We start running into the forest.\u201d<\/p>\n Waksal, who was 15 when he was forced into the ghettos, is the only survivor left from his immediate family. His parents, siblings and extended family all perished in the Holocaust. He immigrated to the United States in 1950, settling in Dayton, Ohio, where he rebuilt his life and married his beloved Sabina \u2014 an Auschwitz survivor from his hometown in Jedli\u0144sk, Poland.<\/p>\n Today Waksal lives independently in Bal Harbour and is passionate about sharing his story \u2014 no matter how difficult it may be to relive the horrors.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to show the world that it happened, because a lot of countries in the world say it never happened, and it did happen,\u201d Waskal told the Herald. \u201cThat\u2019s what I wanted, that the world should see my story.\u201d<\/p>\n The Education Center is free and now open to the public. Groups of 10 or more or classes can book a reservation.<\/a><\/p>\n This story was produced with financial support<\/a> from Trish and Dan Bell and donors in South Florida\u2019s Jewish and Muslim communities, including Khalid and Diana Mirza and the Mohsin and Fauzia Jaffer Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.<\/p>\n![\"Aerial](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/MIA_5Holocaust_Memorial_MJO.JPG\" "\\"MIA_5Holocaust_Memorial_MJO.JPG\\"")
Aerial view of the Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach’s newly constructed Education Center which features exhibitions with survivor testimony, digital storytelling and immersive learning. Photo by Matias J. Ocner mocner@miamiherald.com Survivor meets his virtual self<\/p>\n
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