History, education and a place to reflect all come together at the Holocaust Memorial education center in Miami Beach set to open its doors next year.
“The Holocaust Memorial opened in 1990 and the education center,” said Sheri Zvi, CEO of the Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach, “is a natural evolution of what the founders envisioned 35 years ago, and in order to preserve the voices of Holocaust survivors, as their voices are diminishing as they age, unfortunately, and to me, the urgent need for Holocaust education amidst rising global antisemitism and Holocaust distortion and denial, it was very important that we expand our educational offerings, and in order to do so, the new education center was something that they came up with as a solution and a companion in terms of our offerings that go along with the memorial.”
Ms. Zvi shared that the education center is looking forward to having a soft launch in January 2026 and a grand opening celebration in February 2026. Additionally, the project is nearing completion.
“The exterior is done,” she said, “and we are working on the interior. From week to week, there is a tremendous amount of progress. When I was there end of last week, they were putting in the flooring, and the doors were installed. The windows are in…. It’s really moving along.”
The education center will include interactive exhibitions as well as interactive interviews with Holocaust survivors.
Ms. Zvi explained that these are not exactly holograms, but “there will be screens that have Holocaust survivors on them, that people can ask questions to. There will be a digital curriculum. We have flexible space for lectures, trainings, a gallery that will complement the etchings that are outside on the granite panels, and we will show a film. We will welcome students of all ages and give them free access to whether it’s the curriculum or it’s the film or it’s book memoirs. We are going to make it easy with no barriers or boundaries for learning.”
Not only will the center be free for all visitors, shared Ms. Zvi, but transportation will be provided for Miami-Dade County schools.
“We supply,” she said, “the buses for them to come to the memorial, and we also bring speakers to schools. If a school can’t come to us, we will bring a survivor or a descendant, a child or a grandchild, to a school.”
Miami Beach is a cultural jewel, said Ms. Zvi, and having the Holocaust Memorial in South Beach where there are many visitors every year is great for the memorial and visitors.
“This year,” she said, “we saw 158,000 visitors to the memorial, which is a free destination, so there’s no cost to come to the memorial. Our goal is to triple our numbers with the addition of the education center, so it will allow us to scale our educational impact dramatically, both in person for visitors to Miami Beach, whether they are students from Miami-Dade County Public Schools or visitors who come off of cruise ships or who are there in the convention center or walking down Lincoln Road. So this is really a wonderful destination for visitors to come and learn and reflect, and we’re really looking forward to welcoming people.”
Ms. Zvi said the center wants Holocaust education and all that can be taken from that education to help students “build empathy, fight hate, promote moral courage through remembrance. Those are the things that are so incredibly important as we see this extreme rise in global antisemitism and Holocaust denial and revisionism.”
As long as we have Holocaust survivors with us, she said, they will speak in person, just as they are at the memorial every day to speak with visitors.
“As long as we have them [survivors],” said Ms. Zvi, “we want their voices to shine and be a beacon of hope and courage through remembrance and through their words and bearing witness and sharing their testimony. At the same time, we understand that won’t always be the case, and so we are setting ourselves up to share authentic testimony using cutting-edge technology and community engagement, with a commitment to build a future where ‘never again’ is more than a phrase, but a promise.”
The post Holocaust Memorial education center due early in 2026 appeared first on Miami Today.
Want more insights? Join Working Title - our career elevating newsletter and get the future of work delivered weekly.
