And then, when I studied this issue and talked to my students, I resisted this moralizing impulse. This is a new way of archiving one’s presence in a place. The relationship that people have with physical places has completely shifted. […] This is all about knowing how to read these contexts of culture. – Dr. Maria Zalewska
Dr. Matthew Boswell reacted to this statement by saying that even though it is an individual visit to an authentic site, we have a collective responsibility during the visit because we are there with groups of people, some of whom may be offended by certain actions. Visiting
the place brings with it responsibility and the expectation of certain ways of behaving.
The question is why are selfies perceived as offensive actions? Where does this come from? Very often, it is a way of engaging with the place in a meaningful, sincere way on behalf of the young people as well. It feels like attitudes have softened a little bit over the last few years.
Is there now a degree of permissiveness of these new behaviors we are noticing?
Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński responded by saying that we all have different ways of expressing this anthropological need when visiting memorial sites. Deep down, what is the difference between taking a selfie and a politician having a professional photographer taking a picture
of them when visiting the museum? When we talk about Shoah remembrance, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and historical distortion, there are more painful issues than selfies.
As Dr. Matthew Boswell mentioned, before the pandemic, Holocaust education was in a very challenging position. Two significant shifts occurred in the world of Holocaust memory. First, survivors were getting older and were unable to tell their stories in the same way as before. Institutions that relied on survivors to bring their stories to life were facing a crisis.
The primary question all institutions asked themselves was, 'What are we going to do
in the future?' At the same time, the digital culture was accelerating at an incredible speed. Projects like Dimensions in Testimonies by the USC Shoah Foundation, augmented reality tools by Bergen-Belsen, and the VR reconstruction used by the Anne Frank House were launched
to address this difficult moment in Holocaust remembrance. Then, the pandemic struck, accelerating the pace of technological change in the way we engage with it, as everyone knows. We now find ourselves in a unique situation for Holocaust memory, where people's engagement with digital technology has evolved significantly over the last two to three years. Their expectations have changed, and technology has developed rapidly. However, Holocaust education and institutions still grapple with the same issues they faced. What do we do without the survivors? Has the pandemic provided opportunities to address this situation
that Holocaust organizations would have had to deal with anyway, or has it presented further challenges?
In Dr. Maria Zalewska’s experience, the pandemic hasn't necessarily made things easier.
One of the biggest challenges in Holocaust education in general and in the use of new technologies is the budget. Institutions still struggle to implement projects due to this budgetary constraint. What has changed is the core focus of the memory project. When considering virtual reality, also known as the 'empathy machine' as coined by Chris Milk,
the emphasis is on building empathy and emotions that lie at the heart of educational projects. This marks a complete shift from the primary goal of testimonies recorded in 1945. The primary objective of witness testimonies in 1945 was not to evoke empathy and emotions in the listener but to serve as a means of bearing witness, documenting, and potentially using the testimony as proof of a crime. It aimed to trigger something deeper than emotion:
an imperative to remember. With virtual or augmented reality at the core of a remembrance project, the focus shifts to us, the users. The survivors and the physical space become background elements. It remains unclear whether this shift is good or bad, but it is happening. It's crucial to be cautious not to blur the line between feeling empathy for the victim
and identifying with them. The visitor will never be the victim.