Holocaust eyewitnesses share their stories on TikTok Around 200,000 people visit Mauthausen every year, whereas a single TikTok video can have the same reach. Numbers clearly demonstrate the outreach potential, said Marlene Wöckinger, TikTok creator for the Mauthausen memorial. Neuengamme is no longer alone on TikTok other concentration camp memorials, such as Bergen-Belsen in Germany and Mauthausen in Austria, have since created their own accounts.

The memorial center's pioneering work has also inspired others. We want the community to learn something,' said Groschek, adding that they don't reenact victims' stories or concentration camp scenes, as is otherwise often seen on TikTok. 'We're very careful that our videos don't overwhelm users emotionally. Volunteer Daniel Carthwright helped to create a video for the Neuengamme Memorial channel Image: Johanne Rüdiger/DW The video creators are young volunteers from all over the world who work at the memorial as part of their time spent working with the organization Action Reconciliation Service for Peace. Volunteers contribute as content creators

Some of its videos go viral and have millions of views. 'We would otherwise hardly be able to reach them with our educational work on other platforms.' 'We want to create visibility for the topic among the young target group and reach Gen-Z users on TikTok,' explained Groschek. Studies show that Generation Z- people born between 19 - know little about concentration camps, yet are much more interested in the Nazi era than their parents' generation. A statue at the Neuengamme memorial in Hamburg commemorates the more than 100,000 people who were imprisoned at the camp Image: Markus Scholz/dpa/picture-alliance Starlett from Kansas and Hannah from Hawaii are also at the site to learn about the history of the concentration camp. Nicolas, a 17-year-old from Madrid, said he was the one who convinced his parents to stop in Neuengamme during their sightseeing trip in Germany. 'It's not enough for me just to read about it in school books, I want to see and feel where these Nazi atrocities happened,' said David, visibly moved. TikTok has become an important way for the memorial center to reach young people who are no longer on Facebook and other older social media platforms, said Groschek. 'Many young people come here because they saw us on TikTok,' said Iris Groschek, the historian responsible for the TikTok channel at the Neuengamme memorial - the first channel of its kind when it was founded in November 2021. A new approach to Holocaust remembrance on TikTok Half of these people did not survive the concentration camp. The Neuengamme memorial commemorates the more than 100,000 people from all over Europe who were imprisoned in the main camp and its more than 85 satellite camps during the Nazi era. In the glaring sun, they contemplate a memorial of carefully piled stones, the symbolic remains of the prison barracks in which thousands of concentration camp inmates were crammed together. Gidon Lev is a Holocaust survivor who is active on TikTok Image: Tania Kraemer/DW But instead of spending the day at the beach, 21-year-old David Gutzeit and his younger sister, Jonna, leave their home on the Baltic Sea coast to drive to the former Neuengamme concentration camp in Hamburg. Two years later, also in August, it's a rare hot summer day in northern Germany. One of the young TikTokers defended herself in an interview, saying she had been trying to educate people and raise awareness about the Holocaust.īut at the time, many agreed that a platform famous for its viral dance videos was not appropriate for short clips about the Holocaust, even if they were intended to raise awareness. The Auschwitz memorial responded to the trend, calling it 'hurtful and offensive.' He says he was murdered in a gas chamber in the Auschwitz concentration camp.īack in August 2020, these reenactments of Holocaust victim stories on TikTok sparked a major controversy: a hashtag challenge led users in Generation Z (aged 14 to 24) to pretend to be Holocaust victims who had perished in concentration camps. Next, a young man in a striped uniform appears to stage his supposed arrival in heaven. A video caption explains that she is about to be deported to a concentration camp. A 15-year-old girl with hollow cheeks looks mournfully into the camera, her video accompanied by a song by R&B singer Bruno Mars.

Holocaust remembrance day video