AI Conversations With a Holocaust Survivor: What Educators Need to Know
On a quiet Monday at a Brooklyn synagogue, students faced a two-foot-tall screen. On it, Holocaust survivor Sonia Warshawski blinked, listened, and answered their questions. "Did anyone else from your family survive?" one student asked. The avatar responded with Sonia's own recorded words: she and her sister survived; her brother, mother, and father did not.
This is where Holocaust education is heading: interactive, portable, and built for classrooms that may never get the chance to meet a survivor in person.
Why this matters
The most powerful Holocaust lessons have always come from survivors themselves. But time is closing that window. Of roughly 200,000 living survivors, an estimated 90% are projected to pass away in the next 15 years. Expecting elders to carry the weight of continual retelling is neither practical nor fair.
AI-enabled testimony offers a bridge - not a replacement - for firsthand visits. It keeps stories accessible while protecting survivors from the emotional toll of constant recounting.
How the technology works
In 2021, Sonia partnered with StoryFile to record answers to hundreds of questions about her life - from the death march to why she loves leopard print. Those video responses power an AI-driven interface that selects the closest matching answer when students ask a question. The exhibit debuted at the Museum of Kansas City and has since been adapted into a portable setup.
The Blue Card, a nonprofit that supports survivors, brought the virtual Sonia to 20 schools and community centers across New York, with plans to expand. A parallel effort from the USC Shoah Foundation, called Dimensions in Testimony, offers similar interactive conversations with survivors and witnesses. See more about the program here: USC Shoah Foundation: Dimensions in Testimony and StoryFile's broader approach here: StoryFile.
What students actually experience
Engagement spikes when students can ask their own questions. In one session at a Conservative synagogue, nearly every student aged 10-13 lined up to speak with the avatar. Several stayed after to ask more. One fifth-grader said he'd never seen anything like it - and that it echoed stories told in his own family.
Students aren't just watching history. They're in a dialogue with it.
Limits you should plan for
This is not a freeform chatbot. Sonia can answer only what she personally recorded. When questions fall outside that bank, the system may misfire or return an unrelated clip. Facilitators often step in to rephrase questions or provide context.
That limit is intentional. It prevents the AI from "inventing" answers or drifting into current events and politics. Sonia speaks only to her lived experience - in her own words.
Why the distinction matters
Some tools cross the line. A Utah startup drew criticism for an AI version of Anne Frank that generated responses she never wrote. Historians flagged historical drift and tone issues that softened accountability for Nazi crimes. The lesson: generative role-play of real victims can distort truth and undermine trust.
Interactive testimony should prioritize accuracy, consent, and context. Pre-recorded responses from the survivor meet that bar; open-ended improvisation does not.
Sonia Warshawski's story (for classroom context)
Sonia grew up in Międzyrzec, Poland. At 17, she and her family were forced into a ghetto, then deported. She witnessed her mother taken to the gas chambers at Majdanek. She was later sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she was forced to spread prisoners' ashes as fertilizer, and then to Bergen-Belsen, where she was shot in the chest on liberation day.
After recovering, she met her husband, John, at the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp. They moved to Kansas City in 1948. For decades, Sonia ran a tailoring shop and spoke to students, prisons, and faith communities. Recording her testimony once - and letting technology handle the repetition - protects her well-being while keeping her message alive.
Implementation guide for educators
- Set a clear purpose: Define the learning outcomes: historical facts, moral reasoning, media literacy, or primary-source analysis.
- Prime students: Share brief survivor background, glossary (ghetto, deportation, liberation), and respectful discussion norms.
- Co-create questions: Have students draft questions, then align them to the known question bank themes (camps, family, postwar life).
- Facilitate actively: Rephrase student questions when needed. Pause to clarify context. Connect answers to your objectives.
- Use artifacts alongside: Pair the session with timelines, maps, photographs, or diaries to anchor the testimony in evidence.
- Build reflection: Short writes or small-group debriefs: What did you learn? What surprised you? What will you remember?
- Trauma-aware practice: Offer content warnings, allow students to step out, and provide support resources.
- Digital literacy: Discuss how AI retrieval works, why this system is constrained, and the risks of generative role-play.
- Assessment ideas: Primary-source analysis, comparison with survivor artifacts, or a short oral history project on local memory.
Ethical guardrails
- Accuracy over novelty: Prefer pre-recorded survivor responses over generative impersonations.
- No gamification: Frame the session with solemnity. Set conduct norms upfront.
- Context before and after: Situate testimony in historical facts. Debrief to prevent desensitization.
- Agency and consent: Use testimonies created with the survivor's participation and approval.
- Diverse perspectives: When possible, include multiple survivor voices to reflect varied experiences.
What this means for curriculum planning
Interactive testimony can widen access without sacrificing integrity. It gives students a responsive, human-centered encounter while keeping the survivor's own words intact. The technology handles repetition so educators can focus on learning design, context, and care.
Used well, it's a durable addition to Holocaust units, civic education, media literacy, and interfaith programming.
Getting started
- Explore a museum or nonprofit program that offers facilitated access. Two reference points: USC Shoah Foundation's Dimensions in Testimony and StoryFile.
- Pilot one class, gather feedback, and refine your question bank and facilitation plan before scaling.
For educators building AI fluency
If you're integrating AI tools across subjects and want a quick way to scan relevant options for your role, this curated resource can help: AI courses by job.
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