Behind the Scenes at the Lab
This quarter, we’ve launched a global survey of digital Holocaust memory, continue work on our database, published on AI and Collective Memory, developed digital humanities skills, hosted a Holocaust Education visiting fellow, continued working on our digital memory database, and much more. Take a look at what the Lab has achieved over the last few months.
Since the Summer, the team’s main focus has been on the development of the Digital Memory Database following its beta launch at our inaugural Connective Holocaust Commemoration Expo 2025. The resource aims to be a ‘living’ collection of global digital Holocaust memory practice from the 1990s into the future containing curatorial and collaborative tools.
Database test session. Credit: Dr. Ben Pelling.
In close collaboration with Research Software Engineer, James Alvarez and the design team at Chimney, the development of this flagship resource has been based on rigorous user testing sessions led by the Lab’s Research team. Work on the database has included:
- Writing methodologies
- Developing materials to guide users
- Transcription checking
- Indexing
- Software development
- Design
- Functionality testing (as well as user-testing)
- Quality assurance checks
- Preparation of digital assets
September
In September, when the BBC ran an article about spammers profiting from AI Holocaust images and ‘AI slop’ and consequent distortion of the Holocaust, Lab Director Prof. Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden responded with ‘Why We Shouldn’t Be Surprised about #AI #Auschwitz, and What We Can Do About It’.
This piece builds on the policy briefing she wrote and presented to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) last year, ‘Does AI have a Place in the Future of Holocaust Memory?’ as well as the recommendation report ‘Recommendations for using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Holocaust Memory and Education ,and research articles ‘Imagining Human-AI Memory Symbiosis’ and ‘Handling the Hype: Demystifying Artificial Intelligence for Memory Studies’.
In the same month, we were delighted to welcome our third visiting researcher, Dr. Stefania Manca, who gave an excellent talk to the Faculty of Media, Arts and Humanities about ‘Digital Learning Ecologies of Holocaust Memory: Education, Engagement and Activism’. You can watch the video of her seminar and read more about her work and stay.
Stefania used her time with us to reflect on the implications that research and practice in the field of digital Holocaust memory may hold for Holocaust education. She also reconsidered the challenges and responsibilities involved in integrating digital practices into Holocaust education. As a result of her visiting fellowship, she is now exploring ideas for future collaboration, to create “more sustainable synergies” between educational and digital research.
She said: “The experience enabled me to observe how interdisciplinary collaboration between historians, digital humanists, and educators can open new and meaningful pathways for engagement, remembrance, and critical reflection. Holocaust education and digital Holocaust memory still tend to operate largely in parallel, with limited exchange and mutual understanding.”
Dr Manca’s input was particularly invaluable during our knowledge exchange session in collaboration with University College London Centre for Holocaust Education in October, where the Lab’s research team presented the database and colleagues from UCL shared initial findings from their nationwide survey of Holocaust education practice.
October
October saw a first for us in the publication of our inaugural annual report. Throughout the autumn, we continued to record research interviews and walkthroughs for our Digital Memory Database. This included fieldwork in Glasgow, Scotland focused on exploring the work of Gathering the Voices. Here, we recorded interviews with those involved in the organisation’s testimony collection, computer games, and digital comic projects which we have blogged about.
Our Lab Director also caught up with our project partner, the Serbia-based NGO Terraforming, to talk about their online resource – the digital graphic novel Ester.
October also saw the publication of the collaborative commentary article ‘Handling the Hype: Demystifying Artificial Intelligence for Memory Studies’ in Memory, Mind & Media. The article builds on previous collaborations between Lab Director Prof. Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden and Landecker Fellow Dr. Mykola Makhortykh. The pair worked with article lead Dr. Samuel Merrill, and Dr. Silvana Mandolessi, Dr. Rik Smit, and Dr. Qi Wang, to identify key critical lens for developing methodologies to study AI and memory studies.
In the background, the research team continue to work on research publications related to digital Holocaust memory, with Research Fellows Dr. Ben Pelling and Dr. Kate Marrison collaborating on an article about our Digital Memory Database user-testing processes. Dr. Kate Marrison is also developing a book proposal focused on ‘Memory Makers’, and Prof. Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden continues to develop her intellectual archaeology of digital Holocaust memory culture, grappling with how we can and should define the term ‘digital Holocaust memory’.
Dr. Kate Marrison also took part in a workshop hosted by EHRI-CZ, GWZO and the Malach Center for Visual History titled ‘New Readings of Holocaust Testimony’ held at the Institute of Czech Literature in Prague. As part of this workshop, Kate was invited to test new digital tools for working with survivor testimony, including the EHRI Annotator which will form part of the EHRI Online Editions.
As part of our role as an interdisciplinary hub for worldwide digital initiatives that educate about or commemorate the Holocaust, we have been working on the first analysis of digital Holocaust memory practice at a global scale through our international survey.
It is not too late to participate. We are still asking Holocaust museums, memorial sites, archives and libraries across the globe to contribute their experience with digital media. Whether you have lots of digital projects and a team committed to digital engagement or only a website or social media channels, please do consider completing the survey. To-date, more than 100 organisations and project teams from across 34 regions have completed it.
Find out more and fill in the questionnaire now.
The survey closes on Friday 19 December 2025.
November
We hosted our final round of pre-launch user-testing of our Digital Memory Database in collaboration with iRights.Lab, Germany’s Digital Collective Memory Platform. (Read more about the previous stage of user-testing in our last ‘Behind the Scenes’ blog) Participant feedback will directly inform the final stages of the database’s development, ready for our January launch.
Through our consultancy arm, we also support Holocaust-related digital projects. Recently this has included helping teams prepare grant bids for the European Union CERV scheme and IHRA funding. We continue to provide reviews on applications to the Claims Conference’s New Media Fund.
We held our first Funders’ Forum in November, building on the recommendations co-developed with funders and policymakers at the workshop we held together with the United Nations and the Holocaust Outreach Programme in June 2024.
These fora offer a space for funders to come together to explore the potential and challenges for supporting more sustainable approaches to digital Holocaust memory work.
In late November, we also held two training days – a bespoke ‘listening exercise’ with the Association of Jewish Refugees focused on digital strategy, and a session on using social media for research about sensitive and difficult heritage for Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) funded grantees of the ‘CRISIS – Perspectives from the Humanities’ programme.
Coming Soon
Looking ahead, we are now preparing to launch the next series on digital Holocaust memory and artificial intelligence on our publishing platform Digital Memory Dialogues. Responses to the provocation are currently being peer reviewed.
Designed to start conversations about digital Holocaust memory, the platform is part of our aim to work across disciplines and sectors and bring together all involved including computer scientists, media theorists, historians, educators, curators, archivists, digital designers, project managers, programmers and software developers, among others.
As ever, Dialogues II will culminate in a live online discussion which will be publicly available. We welcome guest editors and ideas for future Dialogues (please email LandeckerDigitalMemoryLab@sussex.ac.uk).
So what’s next? We have begun planning for our 2026-27 international events programme: most significantly, for the Expo 2027.
We have also started planning for the first three of our ‘design sprints’ which will be held with our international partners in Serbia, the UK and Germany. These aim to bring together heritage experts, creative and tech professionals, and academics to collaboratively design digital solutions to Holocaust memory challenges and interventions. Watch this space for calls for participation!
We are also preparing for the official online launch event to release the Digital Memory Database, which will be held online on 4 February.
The event is part of the University of Sussex Holocaust Memorial Day programme in collaboration with the Sussex Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies.
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Want to know more?
Behind the Scenes at the Lab: What’s in the Works? – Landecker Digital Memory Lab