AI Avatars Keep Holocaust Survivor Stories Alive Forever

When students at a Brooklyn synagogue asked questions about surviving the Holocaust, they got answers from someone who lived it—even though Sonia Warshawski wasn't in the room.

The 100-year-old survivor appears on screen as an AI avatar, blinking and nodding from her favorite leopard-print chair. She answers questions about her life, her family, and the three concentration camps she survived during World War II.

Warshawski spent decades sharing her story wherever she could: schools, prisons, and even a 2016 documentary called "Big Sonia." But she knew her energy wouldn't last forever.

So in 2021, she recorded answers to hundreds of questions, from "What do you remember about the death march?" to "Why do you like leopard print so much?" Those recordings became an interactive avatar that can hold conversations with students through a video screen.

The Blue Card, a nonprofit helping Holocaust survivors, brought the virtual Warshawski to 20 schools and community centers across New York over the past year. They plan to expand nationwide soon.

The timing matters deeply. About 90% of the world's roughly 200,000 living Holocaust survivors are projected to die in the next 15 years.

"It's absolutely the future of Holocaust education," said Masha Pearl, the Blue Card's executive director. "It actually is as close as possible to hearing a live survivor speak."

Warshawski's story began in Poland, where she was 17 when Nazis forced her family into a ghetto. She watched them march her mother to a gas chamber at Majdanek death camp. She was then sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where guards forced her to spread prisoners' ashes as fertilizer, and finally to Bergen-Belsen, where she was shot in the chest on liberation day.

She survived, met her husband John at a displaced persons camp, and moved to Kansas City in 1948. She ran a tailoring shop there until 2023.

The Ripple Effect

The technology does more than preserve history—it protects survivors who struggle with depression and PTSD from repeatedly reliving their trauma. Warshawski only had to recall her painful memories once for the recording.

The interactive format captivates young people in ways history books can't. At Temple Sholom, nearly all 25 students raised their hands to ask questions. Several stayed after class ended to ask more.

"It's amazing—I've never seen something like that," said fifth-grader Noah Stein.

The system isn't perfect. The avatar can only answer questions Warshawski was asked during the original 2021 interview. Sometimes the AI matches questions incorrectly, and operators have to manually select the right response.

But for Pearl, those limitations actually help. They ensure Warshawski's words stay authentic and can't be manipulated to say things she never intended.

Warshawski celebrated her 100th birthday in November with more than 1,000 people—and she's still going strong.