Holocaust survivor Aaron Elster still telling his story in death thanks to hologram at Illinois Holocaust Museum

How could a little boy live through unthinkable suffering all alone with nothing? A Holocaust survivor is still telling his story eight years after his death, thanks to his hologram at the Illinois Holocaust Museum.

Steven Elster will tell you, if anyone knew about surviving, it was his father, Aaron.

"He would look me straight in the eyes and say, 'You're a survivor. An Elster is a survivor,'" Steven said.

In Poland during World War II, Aaron's mother found him and his older sister, Irene, shelter in the home of the Gorskis. They were a Polish couple who didn't want the Nazis to know they were hiding Jews.

Aaron's hiding place was a dark, filthy attic. He spent almost two years there, starting when he was just 10 years old.

"He was thrown into this environment of atrocities, and early on, he didn't know what he was doing," Steven said. "He was forced into making decisions."

The most important decision? That he was going to make it out alive.

Aaron died in 2018, but he is still telling his story through his hologram at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.

"I hoped and prayed to survive. Every day that I lived was an accomplishment," Aaron recalled in his recorded interview for the museum.

He's one of 11 Holocaust survivors who spent days being filmed in a Los Angeles studio. Their task was to come up with answers to any question a museum visitor might want to ask It was done over five emotional days of interviews.

"It's that story, it's that ability to connect with a human being, the individual that experienced that history," said Kelley Szany, the museum's senior vice president of education and exhibits, and a close friend of Aaron's. "You can see his mannerisms, his character, the passion in which he spoke."

Aaron described what it was like to live in that attic.

"So hungry … Feeling nobody cared for you. Everybody wanted you dead or out of the way. … And the physical pain, cold, and the winter. Freezing cold in a dark, filthy attic," Aaron said. "The lice, the thousands of lice. … And, yet, despite of it all, I was grateful, extremely grateful, because it was safety."

It was safe, but horrible.

"The fear, the absolute total loneliness," Aaron said. "I was full of nightmares. The nightmares were horrific. Somebody was always chasing me. Somebody always wanted to kill me."

How did he maintain hope all that time?

"There's something in you that gives you hope," he said. "Without that, you're lost."

How did he survive?

"If you want to get philosophical, perhaps I survived for a reason," he said. "To do what I'm doing to try to impact young children, youngsters, to try to make the world a better place for all of us."

When the war ended, there were new challenges.

"Liberation occurs. He's again not knowing what to do with himself, but he was able to, fortunately, meet up with his sister, his older sister," Steven said said. "Made his way through, really kind of by chance. There's a certain amount of luck he had being able to come to America." 

Steven said an uncle helped Aaron and Irene get out of Poland. After time in displaced persons camps and orphanages, they were sent to relatives in the U.S.

The rest of their family had perished, including Aaron's little sister, Sara, the light of his life.

Aaron served his new country in the U.S. Army in Korea. He went on to marry his wife, Jackie, and they had two sons. But for many years, he never told his children about his ordeal.

"Growing up, both my brother and I were never told about any of his experiences until we were of age, which was 18 and 21 years old," Steven said. "It was a pretty heavy, not a burden, but it hit us heavy when we finally understood what he went through."

After everything that happened, could Aaron ever forgive?

"Forgiving is not part of my life, my thinking," Aaron said. "I cannot forgive. In fact, when people ask me that, I tell them in order for them to get forgiveness, they have to ask my little sister, Sara, whom they brutally murdered. I have no right to forgive, and I will not forgive."

But he did start telling his story. Even before recording his hologram interview, Aaron began educating students about the Holocaust as part of a museum outreach program.

"The young people need to know what happened, so when they see something that's wrong, they should stand up," Aaron said.

Steven said his father's passion never diminished as he got older.

"The message. The messages of being an upstander and the messages of accepting all races, religions," he said.

Now that passion lives on in Steven, born of a pledge he made on his dad's last day.

"I made him two promises. One was to take care of mom the best I could, and the other was to continue his story and his message," Steven said.

Steven has kept both promises, and he now speaks to school children about his dad and the others who made it through.

"Not just dad's message, but a lot of the survivors' messages," Steven said.