A Holocaust survivor wept as he relived the horrors of the Auschwitz death camp through virtual reality for the first time.
Menachem Haberman, 95, was sent to Auschwitz on a cattle train in 1944 and recently attended a group screening of The Triumph of the Spirit, a VR film that offers an immersive experience of the death camp.
“From the beginning I felt like I was going back in time,” Menachem said. “I saw all those things and remembered some things that I can’t forget to this day.”
The film’s co-creator Miriam Cohen, 30, said she created The Triumph of the Spirit to “bring this experience, which can be so powerful and profound, to everyone who can’t walk and to as many as possible.” . People’.
Menachem Haberman, born in 1927, was deported to Auschwitz as a child
Holocaust survivor Menachem Haberman (95) takes a virtual tour of the former Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he was deported in 1944.
Menachem Habermann saw his mother and five siblings die in the Auschwitz death camp
READ MORE: ‘The lunatics were worse than the corpses…they waved their arms and screamed’: On Holocaust Remembrance Day, survivors recall the horrors they faced when they were transported to Auschwitz and hidden from the Nazis
More than 1,100,000 people were killed at Auschwitz, a concentration camp and later death camp in Poland used by the Nazis during World War II.
Auschwitz is now a memorial and a museum open to the public.
Today, two million people visit each year to learn about the systematic killing of Jews, Poles, Roma and other groups.
When the Hungarians annexed his hometown of Munkács on November 10, 1938, the town’s Jews are said to have “blessed the return of Hungarian rule”.
However, the Jewish communities were persecuted, beaten and robbed and forced to do forced labor. Menachem Haberman’s father was sent to the Eastern Front.
In 1944, Menachem and 20 family members were sent to a two-room apartment in the Munkács ghetto.
They were deported months later to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, where he was separated from his family.
Menachem’s mother and five siblings were sent to gas chambers, while his sister died of illness, leaving him as the last member of his family.
He was sent on a death march in January 1945, where many of his friends died. Survivors were taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Weimar, Germany.
Inadequate nutrition, poor conditions and executions claimed the lives of 56,545 of the 280,000 prisoners housed there.
During the virtual reality experience, Menachem said he remembers an area where medical experiments were performed on prisoners and a wall where people were shot.
He cried when he took off the virtual reality glasses.
The filmmakers used 360 degree cameras to capture the entire area around Auschwitz
The camp in Poland, now a memorial and museum, is visited by two million people every year
David Bitton, a 16-year-old Jewish seminary student, watched the film in Jerusalem.
He said: “When you look at it, it’s like a nightmare you don’t want to be in.”
A 2019 survey found that 5% of British adults do not believe the Holocaust happened.
45% did not know how many were killed and one in 12 thought the true figure of six million was an exaggeration.
Much has been written to discredit misinformation about the Holocaust.
Haberman, 95, cried after watching the virtual reality film and took off his glasses
Miriam Cohen, creative director and co-founder of Triumph of the Spirit, shows a participant during a virtual tour of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp
A group uses virtual reality headsets to take part in a virtual tour of the former Nazi German concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau and Polish Jewry before the Holocaust
A report by the World Zionist Organization ahead of Friday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day describes a surge in global anti-Semitism after the COVID-19 pandemic created a “new reality” as activity was redirected to social media.
The three filmmakers behind the project hope that technology like VR will have a positive impact. They offer the experience to groups who can book a screening, and individual users can watch the film at a Jerusalem mall.
Viewers get a tour of Jewish life in Poland before the Holocaust, visit the Nazi death camp and then a tour of Israel while hearing stories from survivors.
The VR tour will kick off in the UK next week at an event attended by members of the House of Lords.
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Elizabeth Cabrera is an author and journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a talent for staying up-to-date on the latest news and trends, Elizabeth is dedicated to delivering informative and engaging articles that keep readers informed on the latest developments.
