Sussex University is to house a new research hub dedicated to combating Holocaust denial, distortion and trivialisation spread through artifical intelligence.
The Landecker Digital Memory Lab: Connective Holocaust Commemoration will act as a central hub to ensure “the sustainability of Holocaust memory in the digital age,” the university said.
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 lab will collate and conducting research on relevant topics to Holocaust education in the digital age and the impact on this of social media, computer games, virtual and augmented reality and AI.
Launching the project during 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.
