BOSTON (WHDH) - On Holocaust Survivor Day Thursday, 7NEWS received an inside look at the contruction of New England’s first-ever Holocaust museum in Boston.
The 33,000 square foot building spanning six-and-a-half floors is being built on the corner of Tremont Street and Park Street, on the edge of Boston Common. The museum’s Co-founder, Jody Kipnis, said the building’s location is intentional.
“This is the entranceway,” Kipnis said. “You can see the embrace state, the freedom trail, the Boston Common, and we have the state house.”
Kipnis said the museum will weave together the histories of different communities, showing how everyone can live and work in harmony.
“Our tagline is ‘examine the past, connect to the present, create the future,'” Kipnis said.
It was a trip to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, alongside a Holocaust survivor, that inspired Kipnis and her partner, Todd Ruderman, to create this space dedicated to education about that period in history.
Last year, 7NEWS cameras were there when a historic railcar that transported Jewish people to concentration camps was hoisted into the museum. It will be displayed in a bay window, visible from the street.
“Everybody walking by will be able to look in and witness history,” Kipnis said.
The state-of-the-art building will use technology to create interactive experiences between visitors and Holocaust survivors.
“We decided that with the way people are learning today, it’s not just by reading anymore – people want to interact, feel like they’re part of the history,” Kipnis said.
As anti-Semitism is on the rise, Kipnis said the Holocaust museum’s lessons are needed more than ever.
“We want people to feel empowered – to stand up, speak up, right? Be an upstander, not a bystander,” Kipnis said.
Kipnis said the majority of the artifacts that will be on display, and video testimony, are coming from Holocaust survivors who live or have lived in New England.
The museum is set to open in the Spring on 2027.
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