The University of Sussex was the first HE institution in England to host commemorations for Holocaust Memory Day, despite the challenges the pandemic brings us, this tradition will continue in 2021.
Part of the 2021 programme will be an online discussion on Friday 5th February 1.30pm-3.30pm (UTC) ‘The Future of Holocaust Memory’ chaired by digital Holocaust memory curator and member of the Sussex Weidenfeld Institute for Jewish Studies, Dr Victoria Grace Walden.
A year ago, we were commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz at in-person events across the globe. A few months later, just as many museums and memorial sites were preparing for physical gatherings designed to mark further special anniversaries of the end of World War II and the liberation of the last Nazi concentration camps, the Covid-19 pandemic forced them to close their doors to the public. Whilst many of us hoped we would only face restrictions for a few months, we find ourselves in 2021 planning to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day online-only.
Holocaust museums and memorial sites have had to rethink what they do and how they communicate to their visitors overnight. In this panel discussion we welcome guests from Holocaust museums, a concentration camp memorial, and an academic specialising in digital Holocaust memory to discuss how Holocaust organisations have managed the shift to online-only provision; what they have learnt from this transition and what they think lies ahead for Holocaust memory in the digital age.
Find out more about our speakers below.
Register for you free place here.
Our Speakers
Dr Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann is a lecturer in Visual Culture, Film and German Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research and teaching deals with media memory of the Holocaust, the use and appropriation of archival footage and digital memory culture. He has published extensively in journals such as Memory Studies, New German Critique, the Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television and in the online journals Apparatus and Imaginations. He is consortium partner in the Horizon 2020 innovation and research action “Visual History of the Holocaust: Rethinking Curation in the Digital Age” and head of a research group on “Commemorating the Holocaust in the Digital Age: Immersion, Augmentation and Virtual Reality” at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Michael Haley Goldman is Director of the Future Projects at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Future Projects is a small innovation team designed to research, prototype, and explore emerging technologies that transform Holocaust memorialization and education. Mr. Haley Goldman has served as the Museum’s Director of the Benjamin and Vladka Meed Registry of Holocaust Survivors and as the Director of Global Classroom and Evaluation. Mr. Haley Goldman has a Masters in Education from Columbia University Teachers College.
John Glancy is the Executive Producer for Schools and Families at Imperial War Museums where he manages a national programme that covers IWM’s five branches and online. John and his team are currently developing a new Holocaust Learning programme in collaboration with a leading digital studio and Oliver award winning dramaturg which will be launched in late 2021 . Previous to working in heritage John worked extensively in theatre across the UK as an actor, director and producer including periods as Head of Creative Learning at the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh and Schools Producer at the Lyric Hammersmith. John’s creative practise is deeply rooted in community and youth engagement inspired by his own experiences growing up in a deprived community in North Edinburgh. John believes that all culture is fundamentally storytelling and this has empowered him to take a diverse cross discipline approach to content creation in order to engage audiences across all walks of life.
Dr. Iris Groschek studied art and history in Hamburg and Prague. She worked many years as an archivist. In 2009, she became head of the education department of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial. Since 2016, she has been responsible for public relations and online communication of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, since 2020 for the Foundation of Hamburg Memorials and Learning Centres Commemorating the Victims of Nazi Crimes.