Concentration Camp

Spotlight: Dachau Memorial

By Prof. Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden The Director of the Landecker Digital Memory Lab reflects on how digitally-mediated experiences of Dachau Memorial rearrange the site’s meaning and affect for her. On arrival at KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau, most visitors close the gate which reads ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ so they can take a photograph of the infamous slogan. There is no suggestion from the site’s curators or educators that this is a proposed activity at the site – indeed there is no invitation to ‘touch’ historical things (although the gate in-situ is a replica), yet most visitors feel compelled to do this – perhaps due to the iconicity of these three words. This now ritualistic behaviour is illustrative of the fact that however well ‘curated’ or ‘managed’ memorial sites seem to be, their role as memorial spaces and the meaning and relations relating to the past constructed there rely on the performativity of the multitude of different agents who come to occupy the place – however transiently. As I walked through the gate the first time during a 5-day research trip to the site, my eyes and thus my whole-bodily attention were draw to two things immediately: the guard tower across the roll call [...]

Spotlight: A Town Called Auschwitz

By Prof. Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden The 27 January 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau. These former Nazi concentration and death camps respectively are two of the most visited historical sites in Europe, yet the Jewish history of the town in which Auschwitz lies is far less known. In this month's Spotlight, we take a look at the development of the augmented reality app making visible this past. The Polish town Oświeçim was called ‘Auschwitz’ in German both back in the 15th Century and during the Nazi Occupation. It was also known as ‘Oshpitzin’ in Yiddish. The diverse names given to this town are indicative of its historical multicultural nature. Whilst modest in size, Oświeçim was well-connected by rail, which helped merchants arrive to sell goods in its central market square. These transport links would of course go on to have a more sinister role under Nazi rule, enabling the mass movement of Jews, Roma and Sinti, and other victims from across Europe to Auschwitz I and later also Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz II). As major commemorations take place at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum to mark the 80th anniversary of the Red Army’s liberation of prisoners this [...]