“Survivor Stories: An Interactive Dialog” opened at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on Monday with visitors of the exhibit able to ask questions and receive authentic answers from 10 survivors.
Tuesday, January 28, 2025 2:56PM
Darla Miles reports from Battery City Park with more on the gathering to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.
BATTERY PARK CITY, Manhattan (WABC) — Over 200 Holocaust survivors gathered in Lower Manhattan on Monday in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation.
To commemorate the day, a new initiative was launched in New York City to hear the stories of survivors. “Survivor Stories: An Interactive Dialog” opened at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on Monday, and exhibit visitors could ask questions and receive authentic answers from 10 survivors through AI.
“I was happy to be a part of it,” Martiza Shelly said. “I think the emphasis or you and everybody was involved should be educating young people. I’ve been to some schools. My kids never even heard the whole story. It was horrendous.”
Shelly was just one of the speakers — now in their 90s — who were part of the group that pre-taped their interviews about their lives before, during and after the Holocaust. Rabbi Meyer Kizelnik was another.
Kizelnik’s father was taken from his family and murdered by Hungarian police in 1944. Kizelnik was sent to Auschwitz when he was just 13.
“The Germans saw that they’re losing the war,” Kizelnik said. “So they have the death. No food, no nothing. I was on the death march. Those thousands of people that were sent to the death march, and I survived.”
Over 200 Holocaust survivors attended the launch, which coincided with the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
“It’s a particularly meaningful one for me,” Rep. Dan Goldman said. “My grandmother escaped the pogroms in Ukraine in the early 1920s.”
Another survivor, Frank, told Eyewitness News his parents tried to get out of Germany the best they could by crossing the border into Holland.
“Holland created a refugee camp for German Jews,” he said. “And so they were in Westerberg, the camp that was Westerbork, same camp that Anne Frank went through. But she was not a celebrity at age three.”
New York City observed the day by lighting up City Hall and several other buildings in yellow.
City Hall also announced that a new exhibition, “The Anguish of Liberation as Reflected in Art,” will be open in the City Hall Rotunda for the next week.
RELATED | Anne Frank exhibition to open in NYC on International Holocaust Remembrance Day
The Manhattan recreation of Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House opens on Monday, Jan. 27.
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“Survivor Stories: An Interactive Dialog” opened at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on Monday with visitors of the exhibit able to ask questions and receive authentic answers from 10 survivors.
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