Apprentice Project
Shoah Memory in Oral Testimony
New Voices to Tell the Story is an intergenerational initiative created by Generaciones de la Shoá in Argentina that seeks to preserve Holocaust memory in a world where living witnesses are gradually disappearing. Through a deep and personal bond, young adults are paired with Holocaust survivors, receiving and later transmitting their life stories as a “living legacy.” The project combines historical education, emotional connection, and active commitment, empowering new generations to confront antisemitism, denial, and intolerance while ensuring that the voices and experiences of survivors continue to inspire and educate future audiences.
It is a shared journey between a young adult and a survivor, a living chain of oral testimony. Along this path, the survivor transmits what they know, what they remember, who they have been, and who they were; the apprentice, in turn, commits to internalizing both the story and its essence, and to carrying it forward through oral testimony for decades to come.
“Whoever listens to a witness becomes a witness.” Elie Wiesel
The teaching of the History of the Shoah relies on a wide variety of sources. But survivors' oral testimonies are unique, they give a face to history, help to see it from an individual and human perspective and provide an effective and emotional way of learning and understanding the Shoah and its long-term ramifications. The presence, the voice, the personal experience narratives and flashes of memory of one single person’s life history told by the witness are unforgettable. They allow us to experience a close emotional connection and generate dialogue and identification. The tangible anecdotes offer a credible and vivid image of just how it must have been to go through those experiences. There are thousands of filmed and written testimonies, the oral testimony opens the door to questions and conversation and the absence of the live testimonies will be strongly missed in the future. The aim of the Apprentice Project is to partially compensate for this absence with a “living document”. This experience-based encounter serves as a tool for conveying the Shoah, which in turn will produce an impact and tangible effect on individuals in the future to come.
What touches the soul is not forgotten. The passage of time risks leaving future generations without this irreplaceable resource. At the same time, the new voices who will embody and carry these individual histories create a multiplying effect: they themselves will be able to teach and inspire others, who in turn will continue the chain, the ongoing transmission of memory across generations.
The apprentices assume the responsibility of keeping oral testimony alive and of leaving a lasting impact on future listeners. The survivors will continue to be heard, and their message will reach broad audiences for many decades to come.
The Hamas terrorist attack of last October 7, and the extraordinary resurgence of antisemitism that followed, have created a renewed urgency to bear witness to the depths of barbarity humanity can descend into.
Unfortunately the passing of time has forced us to finish the project due to the aging of the survivors. I will now tell you the implementation of the project. A young adult, not a teenager, meets with a survivor, comes to know them personally, and enters deeply into both their history and their way of living. The apprentice learns about the survivor’s childhood and old age, the many stages of their life, their present reality, their way of speaking and thinking, and the qualities that make them uniquely who they are.
They become familiar with the survivor’s surroundings, personal belongings, documents, and photographs, and gradually become able to carry the story in their own voice—keeping it vivid, living, and resonant. The apprentice receives not only the facts of the survivor’s life, but also its emotional cadence and human texture. Through deep immersion and understanding, the apprentice becomes capable of representing the survivor and preserving their oral testimony for many decades.
Throughout the process, the apprentice keeps a written journal—a kind of travel log—which becomes both a record of the survivor’s life story and a reflection on the experience of receiving and carrying that testimony.
Apprentices were guided throughout the process by specialists in Holocaust survivor testimony, who provided orientation and support whenever questions or concerns arose. They also participated in a seminar on the Holocaust that addressed key historical and thematic issues, ensuring that their encounter with the survivor and the testimony was placed in its proper context.
In order for this to be possible we created a very carefully planned and closely supervised structure. Survivors and apprentices were accompanied by experienced team members familiar with working closely with survivors, who responded to any needs that may have emerged during the process addressing concerns and resolving any conflicts that might arise.
That is why the process requires the participation of a team of several people. The areas that need to be coordinated and supported include overall coordination; the relationship with each of the apprentices and each of the survivors; the coordination and implementation of the training seminar; and the coordination of the tutors. The tutors are apprentices who have already completed the project and volunteer to accompany and mentor the new participants.
There was never any need to recruit participants; the project spread by word of mouth. The process begins with a group introductory meeting between the candidates and the team, and concludes with a moving closing ceremony attended by family members and friends of both survivors and apprentices, during which the apprentices pledge to their survivor their commitment to sharing their story, and share how deeply—and in what ways—getting to know the survivor and their story has become part of their own lives.
The estimated duration of the full process was approximately three months.The project requires close supervision of each pair in order to support and care for both participants, ensuring that the experience is meaningful and constructive. For this reason, during the ten years in which we have carried it out, we worked with groups of 15 pairs each year, resulting in a total of 150 apprentices completing the project.
The results of the project met—and even exceeded—our expectations. Many of the apprentices continued their relationship with the survivor and, after the survivor’s passing, have continued to carry their voice forward and tell their story. Some even kept seeing their relatives making them part of their own families.
Given the success of the project, we believe that the model we developed has strong potential to be applied in many other sectors of the population, not only among survivors of the Shoah. For example, descendants of survivors of the Armenian genocide, the Roma genocide, the persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and survivors of the many genocides that took place after the Shoah. It is a way not only to honor memory, but to keep it vibrant and alive.
Diana Wang
Buenos Aires Holocaust Museum, Board Member
June 3rd., 2026
IHRA - workshop