— Developed in partnership with USC Shoah Foundation and USC Libraries, Survivor Stories: An Interactive Dialog leverages AI technology to enable conversation with real Holocaust survivors —
— Installation launched at Museum as more than 200 survivors come together to watch the international simulcast of the ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz; event organized in partnership with Selfhelp Community Services —
(New York, NY)—New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust today launched a new video installation and web resource titled Survivor Stories: An Interactive Dialog, conceived of and produced in partnership with the USC Shoah Foundation and USC Libraries. It leverages non-generative AI technology, devoid of manipulation, to immerse Museum visitors and online users in conversation with ten real Holocaust survivors.
The participating survivors live in the New York metro area and are members of the Museum’s Speakers Bureau. All of them children at the time of the Holocaust, they are now nonagenarians, ranging in age from 90 to an impressive 98 years-old. They belong to the very last generation of Holocaust survivors, which is rapidly diminishing.
The ten survivors were filmed at the Museum last summer, where they answered an extensive list of interview questions developed by the partnering institutions and informed by the questions most frequently posed by students and teachers when meeting with survivors and Holocaust educators.
These recorded interviews form the basis of the new, high-tech experience, which enables Museum visitors and website users to ask questions and receive corresponding video answers from the survivors.
Inspired by the USC Shoah Foundation’s original Dimensions in Testimony and building on the interactive experience, Survivor Stories: An Interactive Dialog fuses Artificial Intelligence (or AI) with oral history, facilitating an immersive experience of conversation. Crucially, it does not make use of generative AI. The technology does not interpret, imagine, manipulate, nor generate new or composite responses. Rather, in response to natural language with speech-to-text input, the AI matches and plays back a previously recorded video answer from a real survivor (or multiple survivors), unedited, to each question visitors ask.
Different from Dimensions in Testimony, the new Survivor Stories: An Interactive Dialog shifts from a focus on one individual’s testimony to a new, collective storytelling effort. Museum and website visitors can engage with the group of survivors to experience the breadth and diversity of survivors’ experiences—learning more about the vast scope of the Holocaust’s impact from the poignancy of firsthand accounts.
Visitors to the Museum can engage with the installation’s large, interactive screens on-site. In addition, classroom teachers and students, researchers, and others outside of New York are able to experience Survivor Stories: An Interactive Dialog remotely via the interactive website.
“We are thrilled to partner with the visionary teams at USC Libraries and the USC Shoah Foundation to innovate new ways to educate generations to come about Jewish life before, during, and after the Holocaust,” says Jack Kliger, President and CEO of the Museum of Jewish Heritage. “Survivors have been the Museum’s North Star since its founding, and we are
determined to preserve their testimonies well into the future, along with the lessons they impart.”
“Our Speakers Bureau has played an essential role in the Museum’s mission to educate students about the Holocaust. Meeting a survivor and hearing from that person a firsthand account of lived experience has a profound impact on young people. It helps develop their sense of empathy and a deeper level of knowing like no history book can,” says Dr. Paul Radensky, Senior Director for Education at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.
“In our ten years of experience with interactive biographies, we have seen users absorb history while engaging in meaningful conversations with survivors,” said Catherine Clark, PhD, Senior Director of Programs at the USC Shoah Foundation. “This innovative partnership with the Museum of Jewish Heritage will keep these connections alive now and into the future.”
“It is especially meaningful for the USC Libraries and the USC Shoah Foundation to collaborate with the Museum of Jewish Heritage on such a thoughtful approach to collective storytelling,” said Sam Gustman, Associate Dean of Technology at the USC Libraries and Chief Technology Officer and Senior Director of Collections at the USC Shoah Foundation. “The exhibit preserves the singular voices of our last generation of survivors in a way that sets each of them apart while conveying the enormity of their shared experiences.”
Museum Board Chair Bruce Ratner and New York City Councilmember Julie Menin, a member of the Council’s Jewish Caucus, launched the initiative at the Museum on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, as more than 200 survivors gathered at the Museum to witness the international simulcast of the ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
“On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, we come to honor not only the memory of the six million Jews who were taken from us but to honor the countless others whose lives were forever changed by the horrors of the Holocaust. It is our shared responsibility, our moral obligation, to make certain that these lessons are always remembered, and to make certain that we pass on to the next generation our history, committed to ensuring that while the darkest of days have happened that we are not going to forget,” said Bruce C. Ratner, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the Museum.
“As the daughter of a survivor, I know firsthand that opportunities for new generations to learn about the Holocaust directly from survivors are diminishing with time,” said New York City Councilmember Julie Menin. “This exhibit, Survivor Stories: An Interactive Dialog, plays an essential role in bridging the gap created by the loss of survivors, the plague of misinformation, and the complexity of fast-moving, oversaturated news cycles. By using non-generative AI to keep survivors’ stories fresh and accessible, The Museum of Jewish Heritage reaches the next generation where they are, in terms they can understand, while also preserving the integrity of the stories of survivors and the history of the Holocaust. I commend the Museum of Jewish
Heritage, Jack Kliger, the USC Shoah Foundation, USC Libraries for bringing this project to fruition as we mark 80 years since the liberation of the death camps at Auschwitz Birkenau.”
“Selfhelp Community Services has proudly served Holocaust survivors for nearly 90 years. When Holocaust survivors receive care that respects their lived experience, they have the support needed to age with the dignity they deserve,” said Stuart C. Kaplan, CEO of Selfhelp Community Services. “We are very pleased to partner with the Museum of Jewish Heritage on this historic gathering. It is a privilege to have hundreds of survivors with us today, underscoring our shared mission of honoring their experiences, advocating for their needs, and educating the public about the impact of the Holocaust, then and now.”