How Holocaust survivors can speak to the youth of the future

That imperative is underscored too in the theme of next year’s HMD, “Bridging the Generations”, which was unveiled last month.

According to experts in the field who spoke to the JC ahead of Yom Hashoah next week, the three most effective methods to achieve this are through technology, film and encouraging descendants of the survivors to continue their family’s history.

Artificial Intelligence is already allowing young people today to hold sophisticated conversation with Holocaust survivors long after the survivors have passed.

Martin Stern interviewed for the Forever Project[Missing Credit]

The National Holocaust Museum in Nottinghamshire oversees one of the country’s pioneering and most sophisticated AI initiatives, the Forever Project.

For the director of the museum, Marc Cave, AI will play an “unparalleled” role in the future of Holocaust education. “Artificial intelligence is a particularly powerful tool of Holocaust education because it is conducive to human psychology,” he says. “People learn from other people most effectively, and it’s the answers to questions that people want to ask that they remember the best.”

Through the Forever Project, people can have detailed conversational experiences with 11 different Holocaust survivors hailing from countries all over Europe about the full range of their experience – from life before the Holocaust, how they endured it and afterwards, how they adapted to life as a refugee.

Among those who have contributed are survivors Mala Tribich, Dr Martin Stern, Dr Agnes Kaposi and, poignantly, Harry Bibring and Rudi Oppenheimer, who have both passed away since sharing their story for the project.

Janine Webber interviewed for the Forever Project[Missing Credit]

As the tech improves, having gone from its original Mark 1 version in 2015 to now Mark 3, so too does the accuracy of the answers through machine learning.

The key to effective education through AI, Cave says, is for it to be as least obtrusive for the user as possible; so as technology improves the less noticeable it will be, making the experience more engaging and the relationship between user and AI survivor ever more intimate.

Cave believes AI will serve as a formidable tool in combatting Holocaust denial and distortion for decades to come as people will be able to continue to hold conversations with those who lived through it.

“The real strength of AI lies in its ability to replicate humanity and the Forever Project is about using this tech in service of humanity,” he says.

The Holocaust Education Trust (HET) is also employing AI in a similar fashion in its Testimony 360 project and has so far recorded the testimony of four survivors.

Manfred Goldberg, 95, was the first to sit down with HET and answer thousands of questions. His AI testimony is currently being used by around three schools a week up and down the country, and will reach thousands of students this academic year.

Testimony 360 will release the AI testimony of Susan Pollack later this month, with a further two survivor AIs to follow in the new academic year.

King Charles, after being shown a demonstration of Manfred’s AI in January and trying out the technology himself, said he was interested to see technology playing a “key role” in giving “a particularly good impression of the horror” of the concentration camps.

Creative film and video testimony is also becoming a more prevalent medium of Holocaust education, particularly for young people.

Zoom Rockman, a cartoonist and illustrator, is the brains behind the feature-length animation film Survivor, which depicts the life before, during and after the Holocaust of Ivor Perl, who was sent to Auschwitz where his parents and seven of his siblings were murdered.

The film premiered at MIPCOM Cannes in 2024 (the annual trade show for the TV industry) and there are plans for it to be screened in cinemas, schools, universities and synagogues all over the world. It was recently broadcast on ABC in Australia as part of its Holocaust Memorial Day schedule.

Rockman, 25, says the film was made for his generation. “We all grew up with the internet, and that effects how we engage and what kind of media appeals to us,” he says.

He believes that some of the “tropes” present in mainstream Holocaust films do not work as well for young people, who are regularly exposed to more detailed, violent imagery.

But one appeal of the film’s genre is that it can depict the horrors of the Holocaust and still achieve a 12A rating.

Rockman says: “Animation cartoons allow you to show more on screen than you can otherwise do with live action. Some horrors of the Holocaust would be not possible to show to a young audience because it would be too horrific, but we can show quite a lot.

“And I think it’s important to not censure the Holocaust because I think that’s the starting point for denial. If you’re introduced to something that’s sanitised, you’re not getting a full understanding of what happened.”

Ivor Perl with Zoom Rockman[Missing Credit]

Rockman also believes animated films allow for young audiences to relate more easily to the individuals depicted. “In a weird way, it can be more realistic than live action because it’s not some famous actor’s face you’re watching.

“With this film, we’ve found that the younger the audience the better, and it’s been really effective in getting people to relate to Ivor on screen and imagine themselves in his shoes.”

Some animations also have an advantage over big budget, live-action films because of the level of resources and financial capital required to make them.

The Holocaust Testimony Portal UK, which is an initiative of the UK government and the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR), has amassed more than 2,600 video interviews with survivors, working with partner institutions across Britain.

Video testimony has for many years formed a “central part” of global and nationwide learning about the Holocaust, says Alex Maws, AJR’s Head of Education.

Bea Lewkowicz, AJR’s director of Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, interviews Mala Tribich MBE[Missing Credit]

“It’s almost impossible for any of us to get our heads around some of the statistics associated with the Shoah; six million victims, 1.5 million children murdered. But what we can understand is stories of individual people,” he says.

“What video testimony does so well is to re-humanise the stories of the Holocaust and in that way make it accessible.”

While the tried-and-trusted medium of disseminating the personal stories of the Holocaust may be face-to-face encounters, what is increasingly common is their stories being relayed by relatives of the survivors, rather than the survivors themselves.

Pastor Courney Harris interviewed for the AJR’s Refugee Voices this year[Missing Credit]

Two sister organisations, the Northern Holocaust Education Group and Generations 2 Generations, together covering England and Wales, have overseen and trained dozens of descendants of the Shoah to tell the stories of their relatives in predominantly non-Jewish settings, such as those in schools, prisons, churches and campuses.

Generations 2 Generations, which currently has more than 40 speakers and is looking to have 50 by the end of the year, has been invited to speak at 429 places during this academic year, reaching more than 45,000 people.

Both groups are keen to expand their ranks and are looking for new, geographically dispersed family members of victims of Nazi persecution to come forward who would like to preserve their family’s story, so that it will not be forgotten or denied.

The AJR’s Next Generation programme also encourages subsequent generations to continue the legacy of their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents through a variety of activities and enables them to meet each other at regular social and educational events.

The programme now has more than 1,000 second-generation members and 100 from the third and fourth generations. Debra Barnes, who is head of AJR’s Next Gen, says the programme allows the audience to “connect with someone closer to their age, helping them realise the Holocaust was not so long ago and that the consequences are still felt, while the speaker is doing something positive to honour the memory of their family and educate others about the dangers of hatred and racism”.