Holocaust Museum follows renovation with new interactive exhibits

The Florida Holocaust Museum’s recent renovation project included installing a Danish fishing boat used to rescue Jews from Nazi atrocities. Additional tech-enabled exhibitions are on the way. Photos by Mark Parker. 

​“It’s hard to be a Jew right now,” Helen Levine told the crowd gathered at the Florida Holocaust Museum on Wednesday. 

​However, the former board member and current lobbyist for the museum noted that it represents “all peoples and how they come together” to stand against hatred. She said the St. Petersburg-based institution has emerged “better and stronger” after enduring some “tough times” throughout the years. 

​The museum, which reopened in September 2025 at 55 5th St. S. after an $8 million renovation project, hosted the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership’s quarterly event on Wednesday. CEO Eric Stillman, who took the helm in June, shared how previous, new, and forthcoming exhibitions bolster the institution’s mission. 

​“I think once we add these additional elements – particularly, the Wiesel Experience – we’re going to really be standing out from the crowd,” Stillman said after the event. 

​The museum was entrusted with the prized Elie Wiesel Collection in early 2024. Wiesel was a Nobel Laureate, advocate, and Holocaust survivor who President Barack Obama called the “moral conscience of our world.” 

​Weisel lived in St. Petersburg part-time for 24 years, and the museum is now the “world’s largest holder” of his personal artifacts, Stillman said. While a small portion of the collection is now on display, most remains unseen. 

​That will soon change when the Wiesel Experience opens on the museum’s third floor. Stillman said it would feature a recreation, “not a replica,” of the icon’s office – complete with his desk, bookcases, and literature. 

​Touch-screen walls will display digitized versions of artifacts. Stillman said visitors can “pull down documents from any aspect” of the collection to learn more about Wiesel’s life journey.

​The interactive space will also have a Dynamic Dialogue Den to facilitate discussions regarding ethical dilemmas. “We all have them in our personal life, our professional life,” Stillman said. 

Eric Stillman became president and CEO of the Florida Holocaust Museum in June 2025. 

​Dimensions in Testimony is a longstanding core exhibit that enables people to ask questions and receive responses from pre-recorded video interviews with Holocaust survivors. It will move into a new theater. 

​The building was formerly a bank, and the museum is transforming a vault room adjacent to the first-floor core exhibit room into a 68-seat interactive theater. Stillman said the space is large enough “for an entire school group, which goes back to part of our mission.” 

​He noted that the museum will remain open during construction, which is expected to conclude in 2027. The institution closed for over a year amid the recent renovation project. 

​However, Stillman said the museum has seen significantly more visitors and school groups since it reopened. Its mission to “educate everybody on the dignity and worth of every human being” through the “lessons of the Holocaust” is now leadership’s sole focus.

​“We have to solve all of our problems in society together,” Stillman added. “How can we tackle issues and challenges right here in our city? Right here in St. Petersburg.” 

A railroad boxcar used to transport Jews to Nazi death camps.

​The core exhibition, “History, Heritage, and Hope,” encompasses the entire first floor and features a railroad boxcar used to transport Jews to Nazi death camps. Stillman noted that five million people of all faiths were killed alongside six million Jews in the Holocaust. 

​Visitors can also see a new artifact: A 10-ton Danish fishing boat dubbed Thor. The private vessel was part of a massive flotilla that carried over 7,000 Jews – nearly the entire population in Nazi-occupied Denmark, to neutral Sweden in 1943. 

​The museum set Thor “into the floor” so visitors can see where “Jews were hidden under the deck and covered with fish” during renovations, Stillman said. “When you have a physical manifestation, a boat, inside of a museum … you get a sense of the power of what one person can do and the difference one person can make.” 

​Additional renovations included a new, modernized facade and entrance with enhanced security features. The latter upgrade is critical amid persistent antisemitism and the ongoing war in Iran. 

​Stillman said an X-ray machine utilizes artificial intelligence to determine if someone has a disassembled weapon in their bag. “We know that we have to maintain a very secure environment to protect our visitors, our staff, our artifacts – it’s essential.” 

The museum, with state funding, has exponentially increased its security features. 

Share Your News with Us

To share news with the Power Broker, connect with reachout@powerbrokermagazine.com. To sign up for our twice-weekly e-newsletter, visit www.powerbrokermagazine.com; and to join our online conversation, subscribe to our YouTube channel at Power Broker Media Group – YouTube.