Visitors to New York City’s Museum of Jewish Heritage will have the unique opportunity to step back in time and bear witness to one of history’s darkest chapters through a pioneering Virtual Reality (VR) experience.

The 48-minute VR tour, narrated by Holocaust expert Rabbi Yisrael Goldwasser, offers visitors a chance to see nearly every part of the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp, including overhead footage captured by drones that reveals the staggering size and scale of the site.

As per the museum’s website, the tour which opens on Sunday is designed to promote empathy, foster critical conversation, and inspire a commitment to combat hatred by transporting participants beyond the confines of traditional classroom learning.

“What has been preserved of the Auschwitz death camp is the ultimate historic artifact. To visit the camp in person, or to explore it now through this extraordinary VR technology, is a deeply moving experience,” Museum of Jewish Heritage CEO Jack Kliger tells The Algemeiner.

“As the Holocaust recedes farther with each year, and as we lose our last generation of living survivors, we must explore new means to engage with this history and firsthand testimony.”

The museum’s mind-blowing VR Holocaust experience was reportedly only made possible due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which provided an unprecedented opportunity for filming at the former camp.

More than 1.1 million European Jews were brutally murdered at Auschwitz between 1941 and 1945 as part of the Nazis’ heinous “Final Solution.” The Nazi’s prized death camp remains a haunting symbol of the Holocaust’s unimaginable cruelty.

As time marches on and firsthand accounts of the Holocaust become increasingly rare, initiatives like this VR tour serve as powerful reminders of the importance of preserving history and ensuring that the lessons of the past are never forgotten