How AI, gaming and digital worlds are reshaping Holocaust remembrance

“At the moment, we have an incredibly dispersed and diverse landscape of memory-making, and the more digital we get, the most diverse it gets,” Professor Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden, Director of the Landecker Digital Memory Lab on the University of Sussex, advised UN News.

As Holocaust survivors age and first-hand testimony turns into rarer, educators, researchers and designers are more and more turning to rising applied sciences to protect reminiscence, foster empathy and have interaction youthful generations far past museums and lecture rooms with narrative-driven video games and immersive digital areas permitting customers to not solely observe historical past however work together with it.

© World Jewish Congress/Ohad Kab

Landecker Digital Memory Lab, University of Sussex, participates at a panel dialogue: “Technology, Memory, and the Future of Holocaust Remembrance”, at UN Headquarters in New York.

The problem is now not whether or not new applied sciences needs to be used, however whether or not they are going to be used thoughtfully sufficient to make sure that reminiscence endures for generations to return as these fashionable instruments open new – and typically uncomfortable – questions on interactivity, duty and historic fact.

From taboo to instrument: ‘Video games and the Holocaust are mainstream’

Long thought-about the final taboo of Holocaust illustration, video video games at the moment are more and more a part of the dialog as research-led approaches have seen studios beginning to work carefully with historians, educators and archives, opening house for designers like Luc Bernard, whose The Light within the Darkness online game follows a Jewish household in Nazi-occupied France.

It doesn’t have a Hollywood ending; I made a decision to point out the true story, which was that the majority Jews in the course of the Holocaust have been murdered.

“It doesn’t have a Hollywood ending; I decided to show the real story, which was that most Jews during the Holocaust were murdered,” stated Mr. Bernard, who’s at present engaged on the director’s reduce, funded by the Claims Conference and META, which is able to embody the unique imaginative and prescient he meant with further scenes going deeper into the story.

“It’s no longer a taboo subject,” Mr. Bernard stated. “Video games and the Holocaust are mainstream.” 

The Light within the Darkness has reached audiences nicely past conventional academic settings, with the common gamer age of 35 amongst gamers from international locations equivalent to Saudi Arabia which have engaged strongly with the story, he stated.

“People relate to the characters, and it’s resonated more with them than even movies around the Holocaust,” he stated. “That’s just the power of videogames or any form of art. It depends on how you direct it.”

© World Jewish Congress/Ohad Kab

Luc Bernard, recreation designer, participates at panel dialogue “Technology, Memory, and the Future of Holocaust Remembrance” at UN Headquarters in New York.

Building resilient digital reminiscence

The present panorama requires a basic rethink of how Holocaust reminiscence is produced and sustained within the digital age, from interactivity to what it means when customers have interaction with the previous in these areas, stated Ms. Richardson-Walden, whose work brings collectively educators, researchers, policymakers, expertise corporations and reminiscence establishments worldwide.

Indeed, collaboration is important, together with to make sure Holocaust reminiscence stays resilient as digital codecs multiply, she added.

“Without all coming together, we are wasting resources, we are spreading our human resources, our financial resources, our technologies and our time really thinly,” she cautioned, including that one of many best dangers lies not in expertise itself however in how digital tasks are funded.

In addition, short-term initiatives, from apps to digital exhibitions, are sometimes costly and shortly turn into out of date as software program modifications inflicting tasks to “break and disappear” alongside the digitised supplies, metadata and data behind it, she stated. “It’s just all gone.”

Rethinking interactivity and danger: ‘You can’t change the narrative’

Instead, Ms. Richardson-Walden referred to as for funding in shared digital infrastructure. Aligned databases, frequent requirements and everlasting digital experience inside establishments would permit reminiscence organizations to adapt shortly as new applied sciences emerge, whether or not in gaming, digital actuality or synthetic intelligence (AI).

Interactivity is usually misunderstood, notably in discussions about video video games, with fears that customers would possibly be capable to make modifications to what occurred within the Holocaust, she stated.

“But, anyone in the gaming industry understands that is an illusion of agency,” she stated. “You can’t change the narrative.”

The Light within the Darkness: Director’s Cut.

AI dangers: Catching up with the tech world

At the identical time, Ms. Richardson-Walden warned of real dangers within the present digital atmosphere, particularly with the fast unfold of generative AI. Holocaust-related content material circulates broadly on-line, making it weak to monetisation with out historic understanding or moral oversight.

“People know the Holocaust performs well online,” she explains. “Holocaust is a well-talked-about subject. People know about it. People want to talk about it, which is great, but also a problem in this sphere because that means it can be monetised.”

Listen to an interview with Professor Victoria Grace Richardson-Wald: 

Pointing to the mass manufacturing of AI photographs on social media, she stated “we need to find a way to catch up with the tech world’s speed slightly because otherwise the policy, the discussions we’re having will be so far behind the reality that they’ll become kind of meaningless.”

Catching up with the tech world

Both Mr. Bernard and Ms. Richardson-Walden emphasised that duty for digital Holocaust reminiscence extends past particular person creators, with expertise corporations, funders and governments working with educators and creatives to develop moral, sustainable approaches. 

“These conversations used to happen in fringe spaces,” Mrs. Richardson-Walden says, following a panel debate round expertise, reminiscence and the way forward for Holocaust Remembrance on the UN Headquarters in New York.

Connective Holocaust Commemoration Expo 2025 on the University of Sussex, UK.

Now, worldwide boards, together with the United Nations, have an essential function in turning dialogue into coordinated motion, 

Watch the Technology, Memory and the Future of Holocaust Remembrance panel dialogue on the UN here.