Virtualisation and Multimodal Exploration of Heritage on Nazi Persecution

Heritage related to Nazi Persecution (HNP) appears in various forms such as diaries, letters and testimonies that capture memories of eyewitnesses, or registers like death records, deportation statistics and historical photographs that provide important contextual information to these memories. MEMORISE will create a framework to preserve and enhance HNP by virtualising and linking multimodal HNP data resources and by developing and offering novel digital technologies to the general public for accessing, exploring and engaging with HNP. The heart of MEMORISE will be an HNP infrastructure to assist consortial and associated memorial sites and archives in processing 80,000+ HNP content items to make them persistently accessible to the public. We will develop a suite of digital tools for presenting, narrating and engaging with HNP data including a web-based HNP platform for unguided exploration, an HNP reader to support comparative readings as well as three on-site and virtual learning interfaces to support general public users in interacting with HNP in new ways. To generate individualised experiences for these interfaces, MEMORISE will develop a user model and an AI engine for individualised content based on user behavior and preferences. Semi-automated AI-based services will be a major component of our data processing pipeline to feed Dutch, English and German HNP materials into the HNP infrastructure. We will develop an educational concept to evaluate the benefits and limitations of our user interfaces for learning on and engaging with HNP in on-site and virtual visits, especially in times of a pandemic with relevance for a large array of adjacent memorial sites and creative industries. Our social media concept will target engaging digital native generations to explore HNP. To exploit our results, we will develop an intersectional toolkit including best-practices to accelerate the use of digital tools in cultural heritage and adjacent cultural industries.