Abstract: In our chapter, we investigate how the Covid-19 restrictions affected the translation of in-person commemorative ceremonies into online-only events. Whilst the majority of existing research has a relatively small scale, we have turned to the larger scope of social media data to examine wider online memory culture. To do so, we conduct comparative analysis of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram data from institutions organising commemorative events for the liberation of Neuengamme, the massacre at Srebrenica, and the liberation of Beau Bassin together with non-institutional posts using the hashtags from these institutions. Through this analysis, we aim to answer our main research questions: how do the online discourses by institutions and the wider public compare in relation to posts using shared hashtags during major commemoration periods during Covid-19 lockdowns? To what extent did the move to remote engagement during the pandemic reconfigure the so-called bifurcation of memory culture, between institutional and popular memory discourse (Hoskins, 2014) in any way that might suggest that the lockdowns evidence a change in commemoration practices? Our findings demonstrate that despite the major anniversaries marked in 2020, related memory institutions had little impact on social media, and their commemorative approaches in these spheres were not transformed by the pandemic.
Abstract: Virtual reality and augmented reality experiences play an increasingly significant role in Holocaust memory and education as professional memory institutions continue to explore the affordances of integrating digital technologies into visitor and user experience. There is a rapidly expanding list of projects experimenting with cinematic virtual reality, photogrammetry, digital mapping, 3D modelling, 360-degree on-location survivor testimony as well as a growing portfolio of augmented and mixed reality mobile and tablet applications.
Principally being implemented as spatial technologies, several memorial sites and museums are exploring the possibilities of creating 3D graphic reconstructions of former sites of Nazi persecution in AR/VR such as the digital reconstruction of Falstad Concentration Camp, the Here: Spaces for Memory App at the Bergen-Belsen Memorial Site, the Sobibor AR exhibit, the project Auschwitz VR as well as the 360-degrees-walks at Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial. Going further, some digital initiatives are using VR/AR/MR technologies to zoom in on historical documents, testimonies and artefacts, notable projects include the ARt AR App at the Dachau Memorial Site and Museum which revivifies historical and contemporary drawings and paintings in-situ at the present-day site, the Anne Frank House VR which invites visitors to navigate the annex through a series of digital objects, and The Last Goodbye VR experience which foregrounds survivor testimony within Majdanek, the similarly survivor-driven Walk with Me at The Melbourne Holocaust Museum and numerous films that shape the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center’s The Journey Back exhibition space.
While it is important to note that VR technology is not new and has existed for more than 30 years, it is only recently that the technology has become more widely accessible in the heritage and museum sectors (in part, due to the affordability of headsets and devices in the domestic market). The proliferation of VR and AR projects within the sector, then, raises critical questions regards the opportunities for digital Holocaust memory practice and education while also bringing to the fore issues of curation, contextualisation, visitor experience and accessibility.
This report serves as an important first step in this work. It was created as part of the research project ‘Participatory Workshops – Co-Designing Standards for Digital Interventions in Holocaust Memory and Education’, which is one thread of the larger Digital Holocaust Memory Project at the University of Sussex. The participatory workshops project have focused on six themes, each of which brought together a different range of expertise to discuss current challenges and consider possible recommendations for the future.
The themes were:
AI and machine learning
Digitising material evidence
Recording, recirculating and remixing testimony
Social media
Virtual memoryscapes
Computer games
Abstract: The social media landscape is ever-changing as is its relationship to Holocaust memory and education. In the earlier days of Facebook and Twitter’s dominance, there was a clear divide of opinions in the Holocaust sector. On one hand, some institutions were early adopters (notably the Auschwitz State Museum) and others experimented with the affordances of these platforms such as the team at Grodzka Gate, Lublin extending the analogue practice of school pupils sending letters to child Holocaust victim Henio Zytomirski onto Facebook and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s ‘tweet-up’ hybrid architecture tour. On the other hand, expressions of hesitance about these participatory spaces informed the need for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Education Working Group to establish guidelines for using social media in this context (2014).
As practice grew, it also became somewhat formalised with most organisations predominantly focusing on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for public engagement work, and most content presenting traditional curation of historical sources with additional narrative, promoting the organisation’s offline (or elsewhere online) work, or behind the scenes access to curator and educator experiences. Whilst, one of the
celebrated potentials about social media is their ability to help organisations to reach wider (global) audiences, little has changed online since Eva Pfanzelter’s (2014) claim that the Holocaust institutions that dominated previously offline, also dominate on social media platforms. Few others attract much engagement with their posts.
TikTok has brought both new opportunities and challenges for the Holocaust sector – organisations and individuals who have taken to creating content on the platform are seeing far greater engagement than they had on previous ones. Yet, TikTok is also one of the most data-invasive and opaque platforms regarding researcher access. Many also encounter far more Holocaust denial, distortion and trivialisation on this platform. However, the social media landscape is also far larger than the Holocaust sector has really acknowledged and much of the coded hate content that appears on mainstream platforms has been cultivated at scale on others, from 8Chan to Telegram, and gaming and VR social spaces. It is imperative therefore that we bring together a wide range of stakeholders and experts to discuss what the sector needs to move forward with its work on social media. If Holocaust memory and education is to remain visible in the ever-expanding digital world, then it must be visible across a variety of digital spaces.
This report serves as an important first step in this work. It was created as part of the research project ‘Participatory Workshops – Co-Designing Standards for Digital Interventions in Holocaust Memory and Education’, which is one thread of the larger Digital Holocaust Memory Project at the University of Sussex.
The participatory workshops project have focused on six themes, each of which brought together a different range of expertise to discuss current challenges and consider possible recommendations for the future. The themes were:
AI and machine learning
Digitising material evidence
Recording, recirculating and remixing testimony
Social media
Virtual memoryscapes
Computer games
