Stockton Launches Interactive Tech. With NJ Holocaust Survivor

GALLOWAY, NJ — Holocaust survivors won't always be around to tell their stories. Stockton University used interactive technology to help one survivor keep telling his.

Stockton unveiled the interactive video Wednesday to Pleasantville High School students. The video showed Edward Mosberg, 94, of Parsippany.

Spectators asked all kinds of questions about topics such as life in the Kraków Ghetto and the food in the the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. Mosberg answered.

But this wasn't a teleconference. Mosberg's answers were prerecorded.

Mosberg answered more than 1,000 questions about his life during several days of taping. As more questions are asked, the program will learn to adapt Mosberg's answers to give a more thorough and accurate response.

“I felt like he was looking right at me while he was talking,” said Pleasantville senior Ernest Howard.

The University of Southern California Shoah Foundation has about 55,000 testimonies from genocide survivors from around the world. The Dimensions of Technology program uses modern technology to create interactive biographies of survivors.

Stockton’s Holocaust Center was chosen as the national site to beta test a model that can be used by schools.

“This program represents an extraordinary opportunity to learn from a Holocaust survivor,” said Stockton President Harvey Kesselman. “We all need this.”

The program is free and open to any school. The target audience is students from grades five to 12. Holocaust Center Executive Director Gail Rosenthal said they do ask that teachers do a pre-workshop with students to learn about Mosberg and prepare questions. Then classes do a post-event lesson on what they learned.

“This is the first year we have not been able to have a Holocaust survivor visit the school," said Pleasantville teacher Kelsey Shockley, who teaches the Holocaust and genocide class. "But you can see the emotion and impact when Mr. Mosberg talks. You really get the human impact.”

Watch the video below:

Click here to get Patch email notifications on this or other local news articles or get Patch breaking news alerts sent right to your phone with our app. Download here. Follow Galloway Patch. Have a news tip? Email josh.bakan@patch.com.