Latest News:
THE DIGITAL HOLOCAUST MEMORY PROJECT HAS EVOLVED INTO THE LANDECKER DIGITAL MEMORY LAB. FOLLOW OUR MOST RECENT WORK ON OUR NEW SITE: http://www.digitalmemorylab.com
CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORS
ANNOUNCING OUR INAUGRAL ‘CONNECTIVE HOLOCAUST COMMEMORATION’ EXPO
Share – Learn – Connect
Come design digital Holocaust memory futures with us!
Where? University of Sussex
When? 24th-26th June 2025
What are we looking for? A diverse range of contributions from Holocaust memory and education experts, creative and tech professionals, and academics.
Find out more here: https://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/digitalholocaustmemory/connective-holocaust-commemoration-expo-i/
Submission deadline: Thursday 5th December 2024
NEW 4-MILLION EURO LAB DEDICATED TO DIGITAL HOLOCAUST MEMORY LAUNCHES AT SUSSEX
Dr Victoria Grace Walden and Dr Kate Marrison of the Sussex Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies, University of Sussex will be joined by an expanded team from the summer of 2024 to launch a new 5-year project funded by the Alfred Landecker Foundation. Awarded 4,100,000 Euros, Dr Walden will lead the Landecker Digital Memory Lab: Connective Holocaust Commemoration which is dedicated to enhancing the sustainability of digital Holocaust memory. The lab will sit across both the Weidenfeld Institute and the Sussex Digital Humanities Lab, benefiting from the rich research culture of both.
Read more about our future plans here.
NEWS ARCHIVE
Are you a professional working for a Holocaust organisation, or otherwise involved in the development of digital projects related to Holocaust memory and education?
Whether you consider yourself an enthusiastic tech-adopter or someone sceptical or fearful of using digital media in this work, the Digital Holocaust Memory Project team at the University of Sussex would like to invite you to join us for our launch on Thursday 20th July, 14:00—15:45 CEST (UTC+2) / 13:00-14:45 BST (UTC+1) of two initiatives to support digital literacies and practices in the Holocaust sector:
A Sharing Hub –a space where professionals working for Holocaust organisations or otherwise on digital Holocaust projects can share best practice regarding the management of digital assets, and development processes. The pilot hub will be presented on the Digital Collective Memory Platform. Funded by the EVZ Foundation, this site is already established as an international professional networking space. We hope the sharing hub will enhance the platform’s existing capacities. The platform is free to join, and you can register here.
A Modular Toolkit – focusing specifically on social media for the pilot, we are producing a 3-module toolkit to support those who want to start or enhance their use of social media for Holocaust memory and/or education. We are presenting the toolkit as a series of learning modules, which are free to access and could contribute to continuing professional development for those working in the Holocaust sector
At the launch, participants will get a sneak preview of our new resources designed to support Holocaust sector professionals enhance their digital literacies and practices.
Register for free here.
This project is funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund. We are grateful to iRight.Lab for co-hosting our launch event, and to EVZ Foundation for providing the platform for our sharing hub.
supporting professionals in the Holocaust sector to develop their confidence in using social media for Holocaust memory and education. More on this will follow later!
LAUNCH: Recommendations for Digital Interventions in Holocaust Memory and Education
We are pleased to announce that the first four of our recommendations reports, developed with more than 80 individuals from the Holocaust sector, academic, and the creative and tech industries, have been published.
The reports offer recommendations on four urgent digital themes:
- AI and Machine Learning
- Digitising Material Evidence
- Social Media
- Recording, Recirculating and Remixing Testimony
The recommendations can be downloaded here. We encourage anyone interested in helping to action these recommendations to get in touch.
Free e-book available: The Memorial Museum in the Digital Age.
The Memorial Museum in the Digital Age is the first comprehensive review of thinking and practice related to the effects and affects of the digital for memorial museums. These commemorative and educational spaces have traditionally contained object-heavy displays to stand-in for people, cultures and things that have been destroyed. What then happens when collected material evidence is presented to visitors/ users in digitalised forms – distanced from the material proximity offered at so-called ‘authentic sites’? Whilst memorial museums have often been celebrated for their commemorative and educative agendas, they are also political and tend to reiterate museological logics deeply embedded in problematic histories of arranging cultural objects and identities. Can digital technologies offer the potential to rearrange or resituate the memorial museum into activist spaces? Can going online disrupt the national memory politics that commonly characterise memorial museums, or does it enable more of the same? These are some of the questions that interest the contributors of this collection.
Whilst there is a growing number of publications interested in museums and the digital, the specificity of the memorial museum is understudied. Yet, it raises particular concerns relating to preservation, materiality, ethics, and absence that require careful consideration in relation to the digital. After a theoretical consideration of what the memorial museum is and could be in this ‘digital age’, this book offers a series of case studies written by curators, artists, and academics covering memorial museum examples in North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Registration is now live for the remaining online event of our spring season:
The Holocaust and Social Media – Monday 17th May 1.30-3pm (London Time, UTC+1)
We welcome you to come and mark Holocaust Memorial Day with the Digital Holocaust Memory project at these forthcoming events:
1. A talk about online commemoration events in 2020, hosted by CCMR, Lille on Tues 19th Jan. Register
2. I will be participating in a roundtable discussion about the ethics of using digital media for Holocaust memory as part of a programme organised by Falstad Memorial, Norway and POLIN Museum, Poland on Thurs 4th Feb. Register
3. We will be hosting a fantastic line-up of speakers as part of the University of Sussex’s Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations for a roundtable dedicated to ‘the Future of Holocaust Memory’ on Fri 5th Feb. Register
4. I will also be contributing to the University of Oxford’s Holocaust Memorial Day project, discussing what the Digital Holocaust Memory project is, and what it hopes to achieve on Mon 15th Feb. Register
Public pieces soon coming on Latest TV (Freeview Ch7 on 27th January) and via the Queen Mary, University of London alumni blog.
Announcing our next online discussion: In association with the University of Sussex, and the Sussex Weidenfeld Institute for Jewish Studies, for Holocaust Memory Day 2021:
The Future of Holocaust Memory
Friday February 5th 1-3.30pm (UTC 0)
With speakers from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, the Imperial War Museums, and the Hebrew University.
As always the event is free, but registration is required. More details are available
Online discussion: Playing the Holocaust I
Friday November 20th 4-5.30pm (UTC 0)
The first in a two-part series of web events focusing on the relationship between games, play and Holocaust memory. The idea of computer games tackling the Holocaust has been controversial. In this academic roundtable, we invite scholars working in Denmark, the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands to offer a position on this topic. Join us for what we hope will be an animated debate – we want to hear your views.
As always the event is free, but registration is required. More details are available here.
It will be recorded and published on the blog on this website within a week after the event.
Next Online Discussion – Digital Holocaust Archives
Thursday October 1st, 3-5pm (BST, UTC+1) with speakers from NIOD/EHRI, The University of Cambridge, Arolsen Archives, Wiener Library, and Terraforming.
For more information and to book your place, check out the details here. Archive and heritage professionals, researchers, senior, college and university students, and any other interested parties welcome.
Online Discussion – Holocaust Commemorations: Between the Digital and the Historial Site
Thursday September 17th, 10.30am-noon (BST, UTC +1) with speakers from Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Neuengamme and Bergen-Belsen memorials.
For more information and to book your place, check out the details here. Heritage professionals, researchers, senior, college and university students, and any other interested parties welcome.
Digital Holocaust Memory – Online Discussion with …
Dr. Carmelle Stephens, Professor Caroline Sturdy Colls, Dr. Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann, Dr. Tomasz Łysak, Dr. Victoria Grace Walden and Imogen Dalziel
Wednesday 15th July 13:30-15:00 British Summer Time
Digital technologies are increasingly used to remember, research and teach about the Holocaust. In this online discussion, an international and interdisciplinary panel of academics working with and on digital media in different ways will introduce the significance of technology to their research and together will explore some of the key debates about using digital Holocaust memory.
- What do we mean by digital Holocaust memory? What does this term encapsulate? Is it too vague?
- To what extent are digital technologies being used simply to remediate other media forms and logics, historically used for Holocaust memory?
- What are the limitations or challenges of specific digital platforms, tools and technologies?
- Should we be concerned about introducing digital technology into Holocaust memory?
- To what extent can digital technologies transform how we do Holocaust memory, research and education?
Find Out More and Register for the Event HERE
Monday 18th May 2020 – 14:00-15:30 (BST)
Join us for an online roundtable discussion reflecting upon Holocaust memory and education practices during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Speakers include:
- Stephen D. Smith (Finci-Viterbi Endowed Executive Director of USC Shoah Foundation, California)
- Heather Blumenthal (Director of the Cape Town Holocaust and Genocide Centre)
- Anna Hirsh (Senior Archivist, Jewish Holocaust Centre, Melbourne)
- Louise Stafford (Director of Learning, National Holocaust Centre and Museum, UK)
2020 was the year in which many 75th anniversaries related to the Holocaust and the end of World War II were to be marked with commemorative events and education programmes. However, many of these were cancelled, happened with staff-only behind closed doors, or moved online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
As many countries around the world begin to consider plans to emerge from lockdown in the coming months, we are certainly looking towards a ‘new normal’. Whilst social distancing and other measures that will remain in place for some time present restrictions, such a moment also encourages us to reflect on the opportunities regarding how we might define the future of Holocaust education, memory and heritage practice, particularly in terms of the integration of digital technologies. In this roundtable event, our panel will consider what might this new normal look like for organisations dedicated to Holocaust memory and education, and what have we learnt from experiences working during these unprecedented times?
We hope this will be the first in a series of online events related to digital Holocaust memory. For news of further events follow @Holocaust_digi on Twitter, or @DHMemoryProject on Facebook