Playing Memories? Digital Games as Memory Media
In our second guest blog, Tabea Widmann from the University of Konstanz discusses the potential of computer games for Holocaust memory.
In our second guest blog, Tabea Widmann from the University of Konstanz discusses the potential of computer games for Holocaust memory.
A few weeks ago on Twitter, I pondered whether there was a place for Holocaust institutions on TikTok, then posts with the hashtag ‘#HolocaustChallenge’ went viral on the platform and hit international headlines. It has taken me a while to come to write something on this topic. As soon as I took some much needed leave (with no internet signal), of course, a major digital Holocaust memory debate took place. Context: From Holocaust Denial to Holocaust Distortion There is increasing and necessary discussion taking place within the Holocaust education sector about not only online Holocaust denial, but Holocaust distortion. Yehuda Bauer, Honorary Chairman of the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) has recently argued in a series of keynote lectures that Holocaust distortion is one of the greatest threats to the work of those who are trying to educate about this past. We see examples of distortion at political levels – such as the controversial ‘Holocaust Law’ in Poland, which tries to prevent acknowledgement that some Polish individuals and communities were antisemitic and/or were responsible for the murder of Jewish individuals during Nazi Occupation of Polish land. We also see examples of distortion through trivialisation of the Holocaust into commercial products such as face [...]
2020 marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of many Nazi concentration camps and the end of WWII. From March, major commemorations planned to be held onsite and in-person were rapidly moved online. Amidst all of the challenges the Covid-19 Pandemic has presented museums, this shift to digital commemoration offers a unique opportunity for us to archive these events for the first time. This blog post considers what it might mean to archive a (digital) event.
This week’s blog from guest contributor Lauren Cantillon asks how do the videos broaden our ideas of the ‘Holocaust survivor’ figure, while also offering a vision for creating a connective digital Holocaust memory?
On Wednesday 15th July 2020, we invited a series of academics who work on digital Holocaust memory in different ways to discuss their research. You can see each of their presentations below: Imogen Dalziel is in the final stages of her PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London, investigating how the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has adapted to the digital museum. Under normal circumstances, she is also part-time Administrator for the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway; a freelance Educator for the Holocaust Educational Trust; and a volunteer for the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Over the last academic year, Imogen has also co-taught undergraduate modules on the history of the Holocaust at The University of Birmingham. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0eamOxfcsQ Professor Caroline Sturdy Colls is a Professor of Conflict Archaeology and Genocide Investigation and Director of the Centre of Archaeology at Staffordshire University. Her research in digital Holocaust memory centres on the role of non-invasive survey techniques in the location, documentation and visualization of Holocaust landscapes. As a field archaeologist, she has completed the first archaeological surveys and 3D visualisations of the former extermination and labour camps in Treblinka (Poland), the sites pertaining to the slave labour programme in Alderney (the Channel [...]
A critical walkthrough of an Anne Frank-themed tour of the Bergen-Belsen memorial site.
Reflections on Holocaust countermonuments, #RhodesMustFall and the potential of hyperconnective memory as resistance to the fixity of statues.
If you missed Digital Holocaust Memory's first webinar on 'Holocaust memory during the Covid-19 Pandemic' you can catchup on it here.
60 years after Mossad agents captured Adolph Eichmann and took him to Israel to stand trial, I look at the controversy about Amazon's new series 'Hunters'.
What might we learn from this year's online-only commemorations in terms of how we might modify or augment future events with technology?