The acquisition of the Elie Wiesel archives and personal collection was a game-changer for the Florida Holocaust Museum, which is in the early stages of an ambitious remodeling to house the expansive materials.
Wiesel, the late Nobel Peace Prize-winning writer, activist and teacher, taught as a visiting professor at Eckerd College for 20 years.
American studies and history professor Carolyn Ross Johnston, who taught beside Wiesel at Eckerd, will be a speaker at “We Are Living Lessons: The Wiesel Symposium,” planned for Nov. 15 and 16 in St. Petersburg.
A collaboration between the Florida Holocaust Museum, the Wiesel Foundation and Eckerd, the event will also feature Michael Igel, Chair of the Wiesel Archive & Legacy Council, in conversation with Wisel’s son Elisha.
Scholars, humanitarians and business people from around the world are expected to attend.
“We really want to introduce the world to Professor Wiesel the human being,” Igel said. “Because it can be almost difficult to remember that an icon is also a person.”
Wiesel, he added, was a “master” at blending the emotional and intellectual realities of the Holocaust and its lingering aftermath. “We want you to be taught, but not feel like you’re being taught.”
The only child of Wiesel and his wife Marion, Elisha Wiesel is chairman of the board of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity.
“He has such massive shoes to fill,” said Igel. “And I say this with obvious reverence for Professor Wiesel, but he’s so admirably filling them, if that’s even the right phrase.
“Not to say that he’s standing in his father’s shoes. But he’s carrying the torch with such strength and dignity, that to have him be here for this is an honor.”
Day 1 will include an opening reception at the Vinoy Resort, and discussions regarding Wiesel as a teacher and father at Eckerd College.
Day 2 sessions (at the Vinoy) surround Wiesel’s business ethics, and lessons for daily life; a reception and tour at the Florida Holocaust Museum will conclude the day.
When the donation of the Wiesel collection was announced, Igel said, he knew the museum’s responsibility had grown. “I said, we really have an opportunity here to take things to the next level. Not only for the museum, but for our city, our county, the state. All of that. And we want to make sure we’re honoring this properly.”
For symposium information and registration information, visit this link.
Anticipated for 2028, The Wiesel Experience will take up the museum’s third floor. This will include the icon’s original desk and office library (including his personal book collection), his papers, a library of books authored by Wiesel and artifacts including his Nobel Peace Prize.
There is a “sneak peek” of the Wiesel exhibit currently in place on the museum’s second floor. According to President and CEO Eric Stillman, “It’s just really a fraction of the total collection, and what we will build out on the third floor will be much, much more expansive.”
Planned are a pair of curved, giant touchscreen walls, shaped like quotation marks “because he was all about the written and spoken word,” Stillman said. “We’re also going to have, in addition to the library, a writing workshop where people can write their thoughts and reactions to Elie Wiesel’s words.”
Visitors will be encouraged to visit the “Dynamic Dialogue” space. “We’re going to invite people to come in and have dialogue with each other about ethical dilemmas in society, from the perspective of ‘What did Elie Wiesel have to say?’”
Anticipated cost for The Wiesel Experience is $10 million. The State of Florida has already contributed $2.5 million.
With an estimated $5 million price tag, a new first-floor theater will accommodate up to 68 people for an expanded edition of Dimensions in Testimony, an existing program that uses video interviews with Holocaust survivors to answer questions from audience members.
With technology developed by the USC Shoah Foundation, Dimensions in Testimony uses voice activation to retrieve relevant answers from the videotaped interviews, which were recorded in 2021.
The theater (scheduled to debut in 2027) will also be used for film screenings, including a documentary about the remarkable life and dedication of Elie Wiesel.
The State of Florida has contributed $1.5 million towards the theater expansion.
The Wiesel Foundation gifted the archives to the Florida Holocaust Museum in 2023.
“In a very real sense, when we open The Wiesel Experience, it will be actually the start of something,” Stillman said. “Rather than thinking about it as the conclusion of something, we look at it as a beginning – because when it’s open, we will be able to invite in the world, literally, for them to be able to access this entire collection of Wiesel artifacts, which we are digitizing to make them accessible on those curved touchscreen walls.
“We will be able to give everybody of all ages, from adults to school groups and everybody in between, a chance to delve into the words and the lessons of what Elie Wiesel had to teach. And to bring that to the world.”
This content provided in partnership with StPeteCatalyst.com
