Holocaust survivor's story of heartbreak, hope recorded for generations to come
MIAMI - At 93, Holocaust survivor David Schaecter is recording his story of heartbreak and hope for generations to come.
We went back to Auschwitz with David in 2012.
"We all had one thing in common," he told us, "that was death," he said while standing outside where he was held, barrack 8, he shared the horror of how his entire family was murdered.
It's his story of survival that he will share through an interactive hologram. "We're asking David Schaecter a thousand questions to essentially piece this story together in a way in which you can have an active conversation with a survivor," said Michael Berenbaum, a consultant with the Holocaust Legacy Foundation.
The Shoah Foundation is filming David answering a thousand questions.
Eventually, he will appear in a hologram, allowing visitors to ask questions and hear his responses.
David wants to make sure the stories of the holocaust live on, especially with children.
"I want these children to become my mouthpiece. I want them to tell the story they heard me telling them when I'm no longer. That's my purpose," he said.
Jody Kipnis from the Holocaust Legacy Foundation is one of the people putting this all together for the Boston Holocaust Museum. She first met David at Auschwitz when he shared his personal story.
"When we talk about millions, that's a statistic. When we talk about one person, it's a story so we can really learn some universal lessons of the stories of all the Holocaust survivors and what they went through," Kipnis said.
David especially remembers the children who were killed by the Nazis and wants to make sure no one forgets. "There were a million and a half children under the age of 12," he said. "They did away with them, they gassed them, they shot them, they let them burn."
His desire to educate children is one he felt passionately about when we stood at the Majdanek death camp in Poland.
Now, his life's work of telling his story will live on, well beyond his days. "I am so overwhelmed that that whole world will see us, the whole world will hear us, that they'll understand the enormity of the Holocaust and they'll never forget it," he told us back in 2012.
David Schaecter's story will first debut at the Boston Holocaust Museum which is set to open in October of 2025. And at some point, it will make its way here to Miami.