Illinois Holocaust Museum's "The Journey Back" exhibit transports visitors back to Holocaust sites

The Illinois Holocaust Museum, in a worldwide first for Holocaust education, has developed cutting-edge virtual reality technology that will immerse people in a transformative experience that goes beyond just seeing and hearing Holocaust stories on screen. “The Journey Back” exhibit, featuring 360-degree sound, video of present day and historic Auschwitz, and intimate memory sequences from Holocaust Survivors, opens at Illinois Holocaust Museum on January 27, 2022, just days ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day and will remain as a permanent exhibit.

The Journey Back experience will engage visitors in present day and historic Auschwitz through two award-winning films narrated by Holocaust Survivors Fritzie Fritzshall and George Brent. The participant will control their own 360-degree experience as they are placed inside the 3-D environment in an intimate, one-on-one setting. Survivors Fritzshall and Brent guide participants around the modern-day preserved concentration camps, sharing what they endured during the Holocaust.

“The participant does not just see and hear the Holocaust Survivors’ stories through a screen.  Our VR technology transports the participants back to Holocaust sites today as they take a tour through one of the darkest chapters in history,” said Susan Abrams, CEO of Illinois Holocaust Museum. “Illinois Holocaust Museum is sharing this opportunity with local and worldwide visitors with the goals of inspiring empathy, of motivating action against hate, and of creating a world where ‘never again’ is a reality.”

In the two virtual reality experiences, participants stand alongside Fritzshall and Brent as they powerfully and emotionally recount what happened to them during the Nazi regime:

• A Promise Kept tells the gripping life story of 13-year-old Fritzie Fritzshall as she fulfills her promise to the 599 women who saved her life while imprisoned together. Regrettably, Fritzie passed away in June 2021 and never had the opportunity to see the exhibit reach its intended audiences.

• Don’t Forget Me takes viewers on a journey back to Auschwitz, Mauthausen, and Ebensee concentration camps, revealing George Brent’s will to survive in the face of Nazi tyranny.

As the last generation of Holocaust Survivors ages, The Journey Back archives their stories on a platform that will pass on their legacy and provides visitors with a powerful glimpse of history during an inhumane time. (For more information, visit www.ilholocaustmuseum.org or call 847-967-4800.)