Holocaust survivors are becoming older, fewer and frailer so we’re rapidly approaching a time they won’t be able to share their stories and the Holocaust will no longer be in living memory. But it’s important their testimony still reaches young people first-hand for generations to come, so they can understand where hatred can lead when left unchecked.
We launched the groundbreaking Testimony 360 programme to UK schools, which uses AI and VR tech to ‘immortalise’ real Holocaust survivors. Free of charge to schools and supporting the national curriculum, it allows pupils to have likelike, face-to-face conversations with real survivors long after they have passed away, and ‘visit’ sites related to their testimony, for example concentration camps, through VR.
In addition to widespread national news outreach, we set up a pre-rec Outside Broadcast day at a London school, for national broadcasters to capture footage of the tech in action and interview key spokespeople, alongside further in-studio and remote radio and TV interviews.
We also set up bespoke features with national media and education trades, including interviews and op-eds with HET’s CEO, Manfred Goldberg BEM (the first survivor to be immortalised), and a history teacher and Year 10 students who’ve tried the programme.