ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Warren Heilbronner knows the story he tells isn't his alone.

“I’m here, but I’m speaking for the 6 million who couldn’t make it,” says 85-year-old Heilbronner, a Holocaust survivor who moved to the United States and landed in Wyoming County after escaping Germany with his parents and older brother in 1939. One year before, his father and grandfather were arrested and held at a concentration camp.

Heilbronner spoke at the Jewish Community Center in Rochester Sunday, part of a ceremony unveiling a new interactive kiosk featuring the stories, voices and images of 307 Holocaust survivors from the greater Rochester area. 

“At that time the camps were not the extermination camps that happened. Once the war started, it was more of harassment against the Jews,” says Heilbronner. He says, being raised in that atmosphere, he was fortunate that his family’s home was never invaded or destroyed, but the journey upon becoming a US citizen was not so easy.

“The only way you got out of Germany was if you went to South America, Turkey or over to Shanghai, China. A lot of them got out; a lot of them didn’t get out," he said.

The new exhibit is designed to help people share their own stories and remember those who have died. 

“It allows people to come to the JCC and very quietly, with headphones, in a touch screen; touch on the stories of their loved ones who experienced tragedy from the Holocaust,” said Rose Bernstein, Committee Chair at the Jewish Community Center.