“Right now, we have an incredibly dispersed and diverse memory creation landscape, and the more digital we become, the more diverse it becomes,” said Professor Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden, director of the Landecker Digital Memory Laboratory at the University of Sussex. UN News.
As Holocaust survivors age and firsthand accounts become rarer, educators, researchers, and designers are increasingly turning to emerging technologies to preserve memory, foster empathy, and engage younger generations far beyond museums and classrooms with narrative games and immersive virtual spaces that allow users to not only observe history but interact with it.
Landecker Digital Memory Lab, University of Sussex, participates in a roundtable: “Technology, memory and the future of Holocaust remembrance”, at UN headquarters in New York.
The challenge is no longer whether new technologies should be used, but whether they will be used carefully enough to ensure that memory endures for generations to come, as these modern tools open new – and sometimes uncomfortable – questions about interactivity, responsibility, and historical truth.
From taboo to tool: ‘Video games and the Holocaust are mainstream’
Long considered the last taboo of Holocaust representation, video games are now increasingly part of the conversation as research-based approaches have seen studios begin to work closely with historians, educators and archives, opening up space for designers like Luc Bernard, whose The light in the darkness The video game follows a Jewish family in Nazi-occupied France.
It doesn’t have a Hollywood ending; I decided to show the real story, which was that most of the Jews during the Holocaust were murdered.
“It doesn’t have a Hollywood ending; I decided to show the real story, which was that most of the Jews during the Holocaust were murdered,” said Bernard, who is currently working on the director’s cut, funded by the Claims Conference and META, which will include his original intended vision with additional scenes that will delve deeper into the story.
“It’s no longer a taboo subject,” Mr. Bernard said. “Video games and the Holocaust are common.”
The light in the darkness has reached audiences far beyond traditional educational settings, with an average age of 35 among players from countries like Saudi Arabia who have engaged heavily with the story, he said.
“People identify with the characters and this resonates with them more than even Holocaust movies,” he said. “That’s just the power of video games or any art form. It depends on how you direct it.”
Luc Bernard, game designer, participates in the roundtable “Technology, memory and the future of Holocaust remembrance” at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Building a resilient digital memory
The current landscape requires a fundamental rethinking of how Holocaust memory is produced and sustained in the digital age, from interactivity to what it means when users interact with the past in these spaces, said Ms. Richardson-Walden, whose work brings together educators, researchers, policymakers, technology companies and memory institutions from around the world.
Indeed, collaboration is essential, including to ensure that Holocaust memory remains resilient as digital formats multiply, he added.
“Without all of us coming together, we are wasting resources, we are distributing our human resources, our financial resources, our technologies and our time very little,” he warned, adding that one of the biggest risks lies not in the technology itself, but in how digital projects are financed.
Additionally, short-term initiatives, from apps to virtual exhibitions, are often expensive and quickly become obsolete as software changes cause projects to “break and disappear” along with the digitized materials, metadata and knowledge behind them, he said. “It’s just all over.”
Rethinking interactivity and risk: “You can’t change the narrative”
Instead, Ms Richardson-Walden called for investment in shared digital infrastructure. Aligned databases, common standards, and ongoing digital expertise within institutions would allow memory organizations to adapt quickly as new technologies emerge, whether in gaming, virtual reality, or artificial intelligence (AI).
Interactivity is often misunderstood, particularly in discussions about video games, with fears that users might make changes to what happened in the Holocaust, he said.
“But anyone in the gaming industry understands that it’s an illusion of agency,” he said. “You can’t change the narrative.”
The Light in the Dark: Director’s Cut.
AI Risks: Catching Up with the Tech World
At the same time, Ms Richardson-Walden warned of genuine risks in today’s digital environment, especially with the rapid spread of generative AI. Holocaust-related content circulates widely online, making it vulnerable to monetization without historical understanding or ethical oversight.
“People know that the Holocaust works well online,” he explains. “The Holocaust is a topic that is talked about a lot. People know it. People want to talk about it, which is great, but it’s also a problem in this sphere because that means it can be monetized.”
Listen to an interview with Professor Victoria Grace Richardson-Wald:
Pointing to the mass production of AI images on social media, he said: “We need to find a way to slightly catch up with the speed of the technological world because otherwise the politics and discussions we are having will be so far behind reality that they will lose some meaning.”
Catch up with the technological world
Both Mr. Bernard and Ms. Richardson-Walden emphasized that responsibility for digital Holocaust memory extends beyond individual creators, and technology companies, funders and governments are working with educators and creatives to develop ethical and sustainable approaches.
“These conversations tended to take place in marginal spaces,” says Ms Richardson-Walden, after a panel discussion on technology, memory and the future of Holocaust commemoration at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Connective Holocaust Commemoration Expo 2025 at the University of Sussex, UK.
International forums, including the United Nations, now play an important role in translating debate into coordinated action,
look at the Technology, memory and the future of Holocaust commemoration round table at the UN here.
