WORK FOR GOOD CUT - DIGITAL

Shoah Memorial Frankfurt - Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt
Webpage

Shortlist

Title:	Shoah Memorial Frankfurt
Brand:	Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt
Product/Service:	Webpage
Client:	Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt
Entrant Company:	fischerAppelt AG
Agency:	FORK Unstable Media
Creative Director:	Karin Keuder
Release Date:	2023-01-01
Individual Credits:	Roman Hilmer CCO
Individual Credits:	Robert Burtzik Art Direction
Individual Credits:	Stella Stein Account Manager
Individual Credits:	Johannes Eslage Programming
Individual Credits:	Holger Meyer TD
Individual Credits:	Mark Huff 3D/Motion Designer
Individual Credits:	Jan Dinnebier Quality Control
Individual Credits:	Robert Freudenreich Trainee
Notes for Judging:	Around 1930, the members of the two largest Jewish communities in Frankfurt am Main numbered around 30,000. Following the handover of power to the National Socialists in 1933, the regime increasingly subjected the Jewish community to disenfranchisement and professional and social discrimination, robbing them of their livelihoods and financial assets, terrorising, ghettoising, and ultimately deporting and murdering them. Only 600 of Frankfurt's persecuted men, women, and children survived the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. None of the dead has an actual grave. "The work of remembering is a never-ending process." – Jewish Museum Frankfurt. The museum is the oldest independent Jewish Museum in Germany. It was created to rescue, preserve, and disseminate the history of a community that established itself in Frankfurt during the Middle Ages and was almost obliterated in WW2. For 15 years, the museum has been researching the biographies of 13,000 Jewish people who were deported and murdered or committed suicide during the Nazi regime. Our task was to make this data available to historians, all researchers, and family members of the now second and third generations searching for their roots. To make the formerly inaccessible information and photographs digitally – and thus internationally – accessible, we centered our idea around the Jewish tradition of leaving stones on graves as signs of peoples' visit and their remembering of the dead. So, we transferred this tradition into the digital world with 'digital stones' that become information carriers, giving access to a person's biography. 'Shoah Memorial Frankfurt' looks behind the numbers and makes the few biographical data accessible to give these people the graves they never got. Visitors can add to the biographies by uploading photos, correcting errors, or getting in touch if they know people who haven't been mentioned in the 'Shoah Memorial Frankfurt' yet. The result is a platform that serves education, historical research, and personal and collective remembrance. As additional information and pictures are added, the respective stone becomes denser. In their uniqueness, the stones lend a personalised, human touch to facts. The project addresses three clusters: people with professional interests, such as historians researching the past of Frankfurt's Jewish community. Educators and students, such as museum educators, organising and conducting anti-Semitism workshops for school classes. And last, descendants who want to dig into their roots (planning a 'heritage trip' on the trail of their ancestors' history, for example). Most of these people are scattered across the globe. For those who cannot come to Frankfurt, the emotional value of commemoration is vital. That is why 'Shoah Memorial Frankfurt' is more than a database offering a collaborative and interactive memorial wall – it creates new opportunities that will serve the next generations. For the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, the platform is an investment in long-term remembrance and education work, and for descendants, it's a valuable source of information on their roots. In the run-up to the development, all research results were reviewed again and supplemented where possible. We used prototypes and real data to drive the development. This allowed us to test aspects such as display, performance, and accessibility during the development phase. Technically, the application runs on React and Next.js. But rendering and behaviour of the many 'digital stones' was challenging as they should move smoothly on any device and adhere to specific accessibility standards. After testing the first prototype, we settled on WebGL with Three.js. The project development lasted over six months, with the platform being published on 10 November, commemorating the Nazi Pogroms.