Teaching Kristallnacht: When history meets technology

The library at the Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn was a hive of activity.

On one side of the room, a group of 10th-graders listened intently to two Holocaust survivors, hanging on every word as they asked question after question. What were your parents like? Did you play sports when you were young? Were you able to go to school? What do you remember of Kristallnacht?

Holocaust survivor, Ellen Bottner, aged 91, talks about her memories of Kristallnacht (photo credit: Claims Conference)

On the other side of the room, the rest of the class was clustered around tables with headsets and laptops, all of them immersed in a new virtual reality experience, Inside Kristallnacht, featuring Holocaust survivor, Dr. Charlotte Knobloch.

Nothing compares to the unique experience of a face-to-face conversation with a survivor. Yet we find ourselves at an inflection point where these conversations will soon no longer be possible. While 10 years ago, firsthand survivor testimonies were the ultimate in Holocaust education, 10 years from now, new technologies like this VR experience will need to be at the forefront of our efforts to educate future generations about the lessons of the Shoah.

Will it work?

Just at a time when there are fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors to tell their own stories in their own words, surveys show that younger generations, far removed from the history of the Shoah, know less and less about the hatred and bigotry that led to the murder of more than six million Jews. And this comes against the backdrop of growing antisemitism and rising hate in our society.

These students belong to a high-tech generation for whom the range of content available to them through social media, gaming and other technology is boundless, very professional and extremely slick. Is there space for Charlotte’s experiences in the multi-faceted intense technological world of a younger generation?

At the library in Brooklyn, the initial reviews of this new immersive experience were positive. How did you find it? I ask. “Cool,” said one student. What about the black-and-white ambiance? I ask another. “The vibe makes you feel that you are back in time. It makes you focus on what is there,” he responded. Another student said, “All the VR I do is about games. This one feels real.” The comments were less about “what I learned” and more about “what I felt.”

Author with students at Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn (photo credit: Claims Conference)

Inside Kristallnacht enables users to visit Charlotte’s experiences from the Night of Broken Glass, that pivotal point in history when pogroms against the Jews fueled the hate that became the Holocaust. The experience is narrated by Charlotte, and users can interact with her as they walk through her memories of those days while asking questions and getting real-time answers. They look around Charlotte’s grandparents’ home as she tells us her memories.

There are challenges ahead with initiatives like this: affording and getting headsets to schools and other institutions, partnering with local and national museums, making sure that there is a curriculum to accompany such programs, and staying abreast of the ever-evolving technology that makes this all possible. We will need to as whether and how such programs can be effective in educating an increasing number of individuals who have VR sets at home? We are at an early stage of this new world, and we all have much work ahead.

Image from immersive program Inside Kristallnacht (photo credit: Claims Conference)

As the students in Brooklyn emptied out from the library into the crowded, noisy corridor of a large American high school, they hopefully carried with them a piece of Charlotte’s world.

Her memories of Kristallnacht capture a specific moment in history. If we can create the right technological tools, this timeless testimony of her experience and that of other survivors will live on in new education initiatives and have the potential to inspire generations not yet born.