World Premiere of Interactive Testimony from Eva Schloss, Anne Frank’s Stepsister
New York, NY – The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust is piloting New Dimensions in Testimony℠, an interactive testimony installation created by USC Shoah Foundation. The first of its kind in the New York area, New Dimensions in Testimony℠ allows visitors to have “virtual conversations” with Holocaust survivors Pinchas Gutter and Eva Schloss. Visitors ask questions and lifelike projections of Pinchas and Eva answer those questions in real time—offering personal reflections about life before, during, and after the Holocaust. Specialized recording and display technologies and next-generation natural language processing revolutionize the ways we can communicate and learn from each other across time and space.
On view September 6 to December 22, 2017, the Museum’s installation of New Dimensions in Testimony℠ presents the world premiere of the testimony of Eva Schloss and the New York premiere of the testimony of Pinchas Gutter. Eva Schloss, the stepsister of Anne Frank, is a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp who now lives in London, England. Pinchas Gutter is a survivor of six German Nazi concentration camps who now lives in Toronto, Canada. The installation’s technology draws on the rich resource of 1,500 recorded answers triggered by visitors’ unique questions—allowing direct, seamless conversation. New Dimensions in Testimony℠ will ensure that future generations will still be able to speak with and learn from survivors.
“The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust is helping to define the future of testimony-based Holocaust education,” said Michael S. Glickman, Museum President & CEO. “Survivor testimony documents personal experience of global significance, reminding us of the individual lives that were brutally cut short or changed forever. It is vital that we find ways to still be able to ‘speak’ to and connect with survivors far into the future. Technology is giving us a chance.”