By: Nomi Kaltmann as seen in Ha’aretz
20 April 2025
MELBOURNE, Australia – When Berysz Aurbach turned 104 in August, a huge party was held in his honor, and the entire street and synagogue came out to celebrate.
“We had more than 100 people here until 10 p.m.,” his son Moshe recalls.
Many showed up not only to congratulate Aurbach, who remains remarkably lucid for his age, but also to hear firsthand from one of the last surviving witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Australia was once home to the largest concentration of Holocaust survivors outside Israel, but as this generation dies out, so do the opportunities to hear their firsthand testimonies.
An estimated 2,500 Holocaust survivors live in Australia as of 2023, according to a demographic study by the Claims Conference. Steven Cooke, CEO of the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, estimates that only about 20 survivors in this city still regularly share their stories with visitors on the premises.
“We are acutely aware that we are the last generation with this privilege,” he says.
Melbourne, home to roughly 53,000 Jews, was a destination of choice for thousands of Holocaust survivors, mainly from Poland. According to Simon Holloway, a program director at the city’s Holocaust museum, somewhere between 30,000 and 35,000 Holocaust survivors had immigrated to Australia by the 1960s. They helped build many of the country’s Jewish institutions.
As their numbers dwindle, Australia faces the challenge of keeping their stories alive for a time in the not-so-distant future when they are no longer around to share them themselves. Indeed, the growing pre-occupation with the day after has already generated some creative initiatives in Holocaust commemoration.
Marni Levy’s grandfather, John Szaja Chaskiel – a child survivor of both Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald – passed away only a few weeks after his 94th birthday in 2023. He had been a long-time volunteer at the museum, sharing his harrowing story of survival with thousands of visitors.
The Queensland Holocaust Museum in Brisbane is preserving the testimonies of survivors by using technology like virtual reality, AI and gamification technology.
In 2017, Chaskiel was filmed by a crew using 360-degree cameras as he guided viewers through his hometown in Poland and subsequent incarceration in the Lodz ghetto, Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Although he has been dead for nearly two years, the resulting film “Walk with Me” lives on. For a small fee of $10 AUD, museum visitors – using virtual reality goggles – can watch him share his firsthand experiences and see the number tattooed on his arm up close as if he were standing right in front of them.
For Levy, this innovation offers comfort. “I always grew up with my zeyde’s story. When I got older, I started my own family, and I realized my zeyde wouldn’t be around to take my kids to Poland and tell them his story,” she says. “I felt so much panic, because how would I ever do his story justice?”
Thanks to the virtual reality experience, Levy notes, her children and thousands of others will be able to hear her grandfather’s story directly from him, even though he is gone.
“It means the world for us that we have this memory forever,” she says, adding that her grandfather was the perfect candidate for this story-sharing technology because “he was full of charisma and loved the camera.”
During his term as treasurer of Australia, Josh Frydenberg, a Liberal Party politician and descendant of survivors, allocated 3.5 million AUD ($2.3 million USD) in government funding to set up Holocaust museums in every Australian state and territory.
Despite being one of the smallest Jewish communities in Australia with only 5,000 members, the northeastern state of Queensland used this funding to establish a state-of-the-art Holocaust museum that includes both a physical building in Brisbane and an immersive online equivalent.
Inaugurated in 2023, the digital museum uses technologies like virtual reality, artificial intelligence and video game elements to transport visitors to 1930s Europe. Visitors “walk” through a ghetto, Jewish homes and schools, the Reichstag and even a train headed to Auschwitz. The 3D stimulation is interspersed with testimonies from 100 local survivors. Its innovative approach to Holocaust commemoration earned a gold medal in the virtual experience category at the prestigious global 2024 Eventex Awards.
Museum chairman Jason Steinberg says he hopes it will “help ensure the memories of our survivors continue, long after they have passed away.”
The challenge of keeping alive the memory of the Holocaust in an age when there are no longer any survivors also preoccupies young Jewish Australians. As the CEO of Sydney-based Youth Holocaust Education And Remembrance (HEAR) Julia Sussman, 28, is leading an initiative that addresses this challenge.
Youth HEAR, which was launched seven years ago, focuses on non-Jewish audiences, running workshops, social media campaigns and training sessions to help young adults understand antisemitism and Holocaust denial. Sussman, a descendant of Holocaust survivors from Greece, says that more 1,500 young people typically attend the Yom Hashoah commemoration events run by her organization.
“Seeing young adults choose to come together to commemorate the Holocaust is incredibly powerful,” she says.