LDML Logo
LDML Logo

Digital data spaces: the future of European Holocaust data?

What is a data space and what are the preconceptions around them? Our Lab Director interviews Pavel Kats, Coordinator of the European Memory Data Space Blueprint project and discovers why the data space movement is at a critical point and crucially, why Europe needs a data ecosystem dedicated to Holocaust memory. Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden: What is a 'European Data Space'?  Pavel Kats: Common European Data Spaces (https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/data-spaces) are a bold innovation attempt by the European Commission to fundamentally rethink how we share and use data. They’re being funded and launched in many fields, from business sectors like industry and transport to societal domains like cultural heritage, to help individuals, businesses and institutions address the main digital challenge of our times: the growth of data and our inability to efficiently put it to use. For data to bring value, it must be used: in different ways and by different tools; across borders, stacks and institutions; and by different audiences. Yet, traditional data architectures are not built for that. In cultural heritage, we see it better than anywhere else. Every aggregation platform, whether national, European or thematic, at the same time exposes, suffers from and often exacerbates the same set of [...]

By |2025-11-06T09:15:22+00:006 November 2025|
Read More

New Sites of Memory Making: Augmented Reality and Holocaust Memory

By Prof. Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden Augmented Reality or ‘AR’ is still an emerging field in Holocaust memory. We explore examples from AR practice and theory and propose five recommendations for its future development. What do we mean when we talk about ‘augmented reality’ or ‘AR’ projects? Blancas et al. (2021) bring together several definitions which emphasise that AR does not refer to a singular medium or technology: Augmented Reality (AR) enriches the physical world with digital information, annotating reality and supplementing it with additional information (Feiner et al., 1997). A classical definition considers it a form of Mixed Reality (XR) in which a real-world view is supplemented by synthetic sensory input (Milgram & Kishino, 1994). For some authors, AR should fulfil at least three properties: combining real and virtual, interactive in real time, and registered in three dimensions (Azuma, 1997). An ideal AR system would make users believe the virtual and real objects coexist in the same space, blurring the frontier between real and virtual (Billinghurst et al., 2002). It might be best then to define augmented reality as: a particular mode of mediation, which produces a specific relationship between the body and the lived-world with and through media. [...]

By |2025-10-30T10:32:10+00:0030 October 2025|
Read More

Do Media Literacies Have a Place in Holocaust Education?

By Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden Recent opportunities to engage with Holocaust education experts through the Lab have left us contemplating the role of media literacies.  Lab Director Prof. Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden explains why a change is needed and presents her ideas for forging a new path in this field. Research demonstrates that we both ask too much of Holocaust education and do not have a coherent definition of it is a ‘subject’ or ‘field’, and yet we treat it as if it is distinct from other school disciplines. It is both a space for learning about the specific past that has been called ‘the Holocaust’ and laden with additional moral responsibilities unlike any other historical topic. In this respect it is also considered to be a subject which we must learn from to become better citizens, to enhance our ethical compass. The aims presented in the previous version of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Recommendations for Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust (2019) make this clear: learn knowledge about the history preserve memory of the victims encourage and empower students to reflect on contemporary relevance. Many surveys have suggested that knowledge about the Holocaust is weak (https://www.claimscon.org/millennial-study/, https://www.claimscon.org/country-survey/, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2021/nov/survey-exposes-lack-knowledge-about-holocaust), and [...]

By |2025-10-23T10:02:03+01:0023 October 2025|
Read More

User testing the Digital Memory Database

Over the past five months, the Landecker Digital Memory Lab research team have been user testing our flagship resource – the Digital Memory Database – containing a collection of global digital Holocaust memory practice. By Dr. Kate Marrison and Dr. Ben Pelling In April 2025, the Digital Collective Memory Platform provided the perfect space for us to kick off a series of user testing sessions designed to test and gather feedback on the living-database archive. Joining online, trusted colleagues and friends working in the field of digital memory were the first to be introduced to the wire-framed version of the database in its alpha state. Listening to their feedback, we further developed the site (as discussed below) and our inaugural Connective Holocaust Commemoration Expo marked the official beta-launch where we showcased the database to a wide range of academics, educators, filmmakers, digital creatives and heritage professionals from more than 30 countries across the Middle East, Latin America, North America, Europe and Asia. This was immediately followed by a workshop at the biennial Max and Hilde Kochmann Summer School for PhD students in Modern European-Jewish History and Culture hosted by the Sussex Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies in cooperation with [...]

By |2025-10-09T09:04:21+01:009 October 2025|
Read More

Surveying Global Digital Holocaust Memory Practice

By Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden We’re investigating how Holocaust museums, memorial sites, libraries, and educational organisations use digital media in their work. Find out how you can get involved in this week’s blog. Launched earlier this year, the digital Holocaust memory survey seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of digital practice and strategies across this global digital memoryscape. What Do We Want to Know? What type of digital projects are being created and have historically been created across the professional Holocaust education and memory sector What social media channels are used and to what extent accounts of professional organisations are confronted with denial, distortion and misinformation How/ if AI and machine learning are being used in Holocaust education and memory organisations How digital engagement is managed internally, from a strategic through to an operational level. Why? One of our core goals is to build digital literacies and capacities across the sector, and this survey will help us to identify key areas where professionals working in Holocaust museums, memorial sites, libraries and educational organisations (or what we refer in shorthand to as the ‘Holocaust memory sector’) need support. Our work is always informed by listening to rather the imposing findings on our [...]

By |2025-09-04T10:23:14+01:004 September 2025|
Read More

Why We Shouldn’t Be Surprised about #AI #Auschwitz, and What We Can Do About It

By Prof. Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden Last week the BBC reported on spammers sharing ‘AI slop’ images of Auschwitz for profit. In this week’s blog, we respond to their article, reflecting on our years of research into Holocaust memory and AI. On Friday 29th August, the BBC published an article with the headline: ‘BBC reveals web of spammers profiting from AI Holocaust images.’ Whilst this might seem shocking, it shouldn’t be, and far from ‘spamming’, which can be considered a flippant action, the individuals involved in these profit-making schemes are using social media in conscious and sophisticated ways – as its logics intend it to be used. This should make us stop and ask: are platforms like Facebook good for Holocaust memory? On one hand, it would be easy (especially in the current political climate) to say, ‘not really’. On the other hand, if Holocaust museums and educational organisations want their authority to remain recognised widely, they need to be not only be present on these sites but enhance their visibility. As our previous research has argued (Walden 2021), professional Holocaust organisations need to adopt the strategies of apparent ‘bad actors’ if they want their messages to circulate as much as [...]

By |2025-09-02T13:32:24+01:002 September 2025|
Read More

Digital Holocaust Memory – Resources and Readings

Over the summer, the Landecker Digital Memory Lab team members are busy taking well-deserved breaks. Whilst our blog goes on hiatus, here are some suggested reads from our back catalogue which might help inspire or inform your autumn teaching, research and practice. The remit of the Landecker Digital Memory Lab is broad – we conceptualise ‘the digital’ as socio-technical and thus connective, and as an entanglement of human and computational actancies. But what does this mean in practice? Firstly, it means our research covers a range of different digital media, this includes computer games. Last year we hosted an international junior research associate, Austin Xie, from the University of Chicago who thought through the challenges of navigating Holocaust memory in computer games shared in two blogs on our site, part I and part II. We also launched recommendations for using VR, XR and computer games. We captured more on these topics in our blog archive, check out pieces on Playing Memories,  Reading Call of Duty, and student ideas for Holocaust computer games. The first series of our new Digital Memory Dialogues also focuses on this topic asking to what extent can the Holocaust be made playable in computer games? This [...]

By |2025-08-28T13:23:52+01:0014 August 2025|
Read More

“I’m a Holocaust survivor and…” : reflections on the USHMM ‘Next Chapter’ video series

This week’s blog from guest contributor Lauren Cantillon asks how do the videos broaden our ideas of the ‘Holocaust survivor’ figure, while also offering a vision for creating a connective digital Holocaust memory?

By |2024-11-28T11:22:53+00:0030 July 2020|
Read More

Follow us on social media

Contact

Landecker Digital Memory Lab
University of Sussex
Falmer Campus
Brighton and Hove
East Sussex
BN1 9RH
LandeckerDigitalMemoryLab@sussex.ac.uk

Contact

Landecker Digital Memory Lab
University of Sussex
Falmer Campus
Brighton and Hove
East Sussex
BN1 9RH
LandeckerDigitalMemoryLab@sussex.ac.uk

© Copyright 2024 | Landecker Digital Memory Lab – All Rights Reserved. | Privacy policy

Go to Top