Lillian & Larry Goodman Foundations Holography Theater
Meet Our Virtual Survivors
Imagine sitting in a theater listening to Auschwitz survivor Fritzie Fritzshall as she recounts her harrowing story of the Holocaust, in which she, as a 13-year-old, was ripped from her home and transported to the notorious concentration camp where most of her family was murdered. Imagine asking her questions about life during the Holocaust, about those Upstanders who risked their lives to save her, about her messages for our world today.
After watching a short intro film, you too will be able to ask questions to the holograms of Fritzie Fritzshall, Aaron Elster, and other Survivors in this award-winning innovative exhibition.
High-definition holographic interview recordings paired with voice recognition technology enables Survivors to tell their deeply moving personal stories and respond to questions from the audience, inviting visitors to have a personalized, one-on-one ‘conversation.’
Debuting at Experience360 are three new holograms: Rodi Glass, Marion Deichmann, and Kizito Kalima, Tutsi Survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He is the first featured survivor who was not in the Holocaust.
As seen on 60 MinutesNow Playing: Week of 10/05 to 10/11
In 1929, Eva Schloss (born Eva Geiringer) was born in Vienna, Austria. Eva had an older brother, Heinz, with whom she was very close. Her family was upper-middle-class, nonreligious, and owned a shoe factory prior to the war. In 1938, Germany annexed Austria in an event known as the Anschluss, and laws against Jews were immediately enacted. Forced to become German, her family lost their nationality and were given new passports that identified them as Jewish. Eva’s father was able to move to Amsterdam in 1939, and the rest of the family joined him in 1940.
In Amsterdam Heinz began composing on the piano, learned the accordion, and started a jazz band. The Geiringers also met the Frank family during this time, and Eva and Anne Frank became friendly. In 1942, after the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, Eva and her family went into hiding.
On Eva’s 15th birthday in 1944, the Dutch woman who had been hiding Eva’s family had betrayed them and alerted the secret police of their location. Eva was sent first to Westerbork Concentration Camp, saved from being sent straight to Auschwitz-Birkenau after her mother insisted she wear an overcoat and frumpy hat that made her look older. Eva’s father and brother died after they were sent on a death march to Mauthausen Concentration Camp while Eva and her mother spent the war together in Birkenau.
What will you ask Eva? Visit her Hologram in person to witness her story.
Featured Survivors in Holography
Marion Deichmann Aaron Elster Renée Firestone Fritzie Fritzshall Rodi Glass Pinchas Gutter Sam Harris Kizito Kalima Eva Kor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch Eva SchlossThe Lillian and Larry Goodman Foundations Holography Theater features Dimensions in Testimony (DiT), developed by USC Shoah Foundation and Interactive Interviews, an initiative by USC Libraries and USC Digital Repository, developed in collaboration with Illinois Holocaust Museum.
Photo credits: Scott Edwards, Ron Gould, Robert F. Kusel