A new exhibit will open on Friday at the Holocaust & Humanity Center that allows you to engage in a "virtual conversation" with an actual Holocaust survivor.
The exhibit features Fritzie Fritzshall, a Holocaust survivor who worked as a slave laborer for nearly a year before being sent on a death march to Germany. Her story is now immortalized in the Holocaust & Humanity Center. The exhibit uses artificial intelligence technology to allow visitors to ask Holocaust survivors questions and receive responses in real time.
"Even though there were times when we said nobody will survive, there's hope maybe somebody will survive," Fritzhall said through her virtual conversation with WVXU.
HHC CEO Sarah Weiss says the technology was introduced to her five years ago and believes more exhibits like this could be seen in museums in the future.
"At the same time, we'll continue to see the traditional exhibits and artifacts and testimonies that are also so important, but this just gives a new dimension, a new way of engaging with the history that I absolutely think we'll see more of," Weiss said.
Weiss said it took her a while to get used to communicating with a virtual exhibit, but one demographic took to it very quickly.
"Once we realized that especially young people were interacting with this so naturally and so fluidly and as if they were sitting down and having coffee with a survivor, it proved to me that this was technology that we wanted to integrate," Weiss said.
The exhibit is called "Dimensions in Testimony," and is on exhibit in only seven other museums in the world.
The exhibit opens in Cincinnati Friday, Feb. 5.
You can view an example of what to expect at the exhibit below.
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