Serious debates on socio-political issues are also increasingly taking place on TikTok. For Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, 2021, the young social media platform has therefore also dedicated itself to remembering the Shoah: Several concentration camp memorials now want to reach“Generation Z” , for whom Instagram and Facebook are oldschool, with short video clips . The Central Council of Jews praises the use of the app to target the 16 to 24 age group
Screenshot of a TikTok video clip of the Neuengamme concentration camp memorial in Hamburg. Photo: TikTok
Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert is a star on TikTok
Every month, more than one billion people worldwide use the short video service TikTok; in Europe, the figure is around 100 million. It is above all “Generation Z”, the 16 to 24-year-old age group, that feels addressed by the content there. More than two thirds of all TikTok posts are posted by users from this demographic or are aimed at them. Initially, it was mainly entertaining content that found its way onto the platform, but increasingly serious debates on socio-political issues are also taking place on TikTok. To mark Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, TikTok has now also turned its attention to the memory of the Shoah.
The 98-year-old British Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert has been a star on TikTok since she started posting videos there a few months ago together with her great-grandson Dov Forman. 1.6 million people now follow Ebert and Forman on the platform. Recently, several concentration camp memorials have even joined TikTok, posting short, informative video clips – mainly in English.
The pioneer in Germany is the Neuengamme concentration camp memorial in Hamburg
The pioneer in Germany is the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial in Hamburg. There are already 38 clips on its TikTok page, 9600 users follow the memorial and as many as 92,300 people have already “liked“ the page. The videos briefly and concisely explain what happened in Neuengamme during the Nazi regime, what individual fates there were and how the approximately 50,000 people who were murdered there are remembered today. A short video of Neuengamme, which explains the markings on the prisoners’ uniforms, has already been viewed by over 400,000 TikTok users. The Mauthausen Concentration Camp Memorial in Austria has also recently started producing explanatory videos especially for TikTok. Marlene Wöckinger is one of two people appearing in front of the camera. “It is important to us at the Mauthausen Memorial to enter into a dialog with people, both on site and in the digital space, and this is also possible with thought-provoking videos that are only one minute or 30 seconds long,“ she says. TikTok in particular is geared towards intensive personal dialog – “and that fits in well with our educational goal,” Wöckinger believes.
Information and education for a younger target group
During the presentation of the pilot project “TikTok – Shoah Education and Commemoration Initiative“, TikTok Germany Managing Director Tobias Henning emphasizedthat his platform wants to make its contribution to actively raising awareness and education about the Holocaust. Daniel Botmann, Managing Director of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, praised the platform’s initiative at the press conference as an “important sign“. It will enable a younger target group in particular to get to know survivors of the Shoah or to exchange ideas with them.
High expectations of social network operators
The Jewish community in Germany has high expectations of the operators of social networks. The latter have a great responsibility, emphasized Botmann. “It is not the case that the platforms are merely a reflection of society. They are also places where, in apparent anonymity, people dare to say things and commit crimes that they would not commit in real life,” he said. Hate and hate speech must therefore not only be consistently deleted and stopped from spreading. It is also necessary to educate people – Tiktok is setting a good example here.
Preparing the content of concentration camp memorials for specific target groups
Remko Leemhuis agreed with him. The managing director of the Berlin office of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) wants content to be prepared in a way that is appropriate for the target group, but at the same time does justice to the seriousness of the topic. Due to the rapidly decreasing number of contemporary witnesses and the increasing relativization of the Shoah, which reaches far into the middle of society, the culture of remembrance is facing great challenges, emphasized Leemhuis. Together with TikTok and other partners, the AJC also carried out a multi-part series of seminars, a pilot project in which memorial sites and museums were encouraged to provide information about their work on TikTok.
Tip: You can find the TikTok account of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial here.
You can find out more about digitization and cultural heritage in issue 2/2022.
Since the end of July 2021, the SchUM sites in Speyer, Worms and Mainz have been UNESCO World Heritage Sites – and at the end of last year, the app was completed: it invites you on a virtual journey to the Jewish medieval monuments and old cemeteries. Read more here.