Sussex University is to house a new research hub dedicated to ensuring “the sustainability of Holocaust memory in the digital age”.
The five-year programme, funded to the tune of 4.1 million euros (3.4 million) by the Alfred Landecker Foundation in Berlin, whose remit includes remembering the Holocaust and fighting antisemitism, represents the largest grant for humanities research in the history of the university.
The Landecker Digital Memory Lab: Connective Holocaust Commemoration will collate and conduct research on Holocaust education and the impact on this of social media, computer games, virtual and augmented reality and Artificial Intelligence.
Launching the project at an event at the Imperial War Museum, its director, Professor Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden, said Holocaust education and memory was currently confronting an “existential crisis”.
She said: “Holocaust denial, distortion, contestation and trivialisation has become more visible over the past decade,” perpetuated in particular by social media platforms and the rise of AI. The work of the lab has “never been more urgent”.
Since October 7, she added, such distortions of history have been “amplified to such an extent” by social media and AI that questioning the Holocaust was becoming “seemingly normalised in mainstream public discourse”.
The prevalence of Holocaust distortion has come at a time when, according to Walden, schools in the UK were “turning their back” on Holocaust education programmes, claiming the subject was “too political or too insensitive at this time” to carry out.
“The Lab seeks to address these issues by providing a hub that aims to tackle them at the transnational level through interdisciplinary and cross-sector working,” she said.
Included in the lab’s plans will be the design of “a suite of training courses designed to enhance critical awareness of digital technologies for Holocaust organisations”. It will look also to lead a programme of online and in-person events across Europe, bringing together “Holocaust memory and education professionals, academics, technology and creative media industries and policymakers”.
Three large, educational international events to showcase initiatives in the field will also be hosted by the lab in the next five years.
Lord Eric Pickles at the launch of the Landecker Digital Memory Lab (Credit: Landecker Digital Memory Lab/Bluesky)
Lena Altman, co-ceo of the Landecker Foundation, said: “How do we encourage a digital generation to engage with the murder of millions of Jews and apply lessons from this past to contemporary challenges?
“The Landecker Digital Memory Lab addresses this head-on by mapping existing high-quality digital content on the Holocaust in a unique archive, so that those engaged in historical and political education do not have to reinvent the wheel but learn from best practice examples instead.”
Attending the project’s launch on Monday was Minister for Faith and Communities, Lord Wajid Khan, UK special envoy for post-Holocaust issues and president of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, Lord Eric Pickles, and Shoah survivors Mala Tribich, Janine Webber, Renee Salt, Susan Pollack, and Dr Agnes Kaposi.
Lord Pickles said that questioning of the Holocaust had become “mainstream” with the advent of AI. The latest wave of antisemitism, he claimed, had arrived amid a “perfect storm”, when public trust in reliable news outlets was at an all-time low and the number of people getting their news from social media platforms – which had little or no moderation or balance – was at an all-time high.
He said: “In our fast-changing digital world in which profound misrepresentation and Holocaust denial are amplified across multiple media platforms and echo chambers, we have a duty to preserve historical records and personal memories in order to ensure that future generations have access to the full truth about the Holocaust.”
Lord Kahn, Minister for Faith, Communities and Resettlement, said that while AI had “the potential to solve many of the world’s challenges”, it brought with it risk and danger, particularly when used for “social and public manipulation,”
The launch of the lab at this time, he said, was “so important” due to the memory of the Holocaust increasingly being invoked in bad faith and “weaponised”.
“Many demonstrations across the world have in some shape or form referred to the Holocaust, with much of the language steeped in Holocaust denial and distortion,” Lord Khan said.
He continued, “Shockingly, organisations involved in the remembrance and education of the Holocaust are increasingly coming under attack. Nazi symbols including the swastika, have been used to weaponize the Holocaust against the Jewish community.”
Collaborating with the project are the Association of Jewish Refugees, the Digital Collective Memory, the Claims Conference and the iRights Lab.
