Dimensions in Testimony theater established at new Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum

Sun, 10/06/2019 - 12:00pm

The Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum this month became the second in the world to install a permanent theater to display Dimensions in Testimony – an interactive, holographic project developed by USC Shoah Foundation that will allow visitors to interact with a Holocaust survivor long after they are no longer with us.

The interactive technology allows visitors to speak with holographic images of survivors in real time, including one of Dallas’ own Holocaust survivors, Max Glauben, who will be the featured survivor that visitors will interact with in the permanent theater.

The first museum to install such a theater was the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center.

The installation of Dimensions in Testimony in Dallas coincided with the highly anticipated Sept. 18 opening of the new museum, a dream 40 years in the making with an expanded mission to educate students and the public about the history of the Holocaust, human rights, and the ethical responsibility for all humanity to combat prejudice, hatred, and indifference.

The museum also features 68 video testimonies from Dallas-area Holocaust survivors, artifacts from concentration and death camps, monumental displays of real locations like the Brandenburg Gate, and a fully restored Nazi-era boxcar.

The museum expects its foot traffic to double in the next year, to 200,000, with half of the patrons being students in middle school and high school.

“With this remarkable new facility, this museum is poised to expand its vital mission to educate Texans about the Holocaust and the great collective resilience that follows in the wake of intolerance and injustice,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said. “The Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum is a reminder of the evil that can exist in the world and it stands as memorial to those who lost their lives, so that their memory will never fade. All those who walk through these halls will be inspired to fight for human dignity and freedom throughout the world.”

Rob Kuznia