Kristallnacht Remembered in Second Life: Is the Metaverse Ready to Memorialize the Holocaust?

When Boliver Oddfellow of Involve 3D told me his metaverse development studio was creating a Kristallnacht memorial in Second Life under the auspices of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, I told him it would have to be judged by the highest standards.   Of course innumerable historical memorials have been built in Second Life already-- here's one to the victims of 9/11, for example, here's another to commemorate US veterans of the Vietnam War-- but for many reasons, the Holocaust remains the blackest stain in the Western conscience.  Its ultimate lesson, "Never again", is not meant as trite moralizing, but a call to action in the eternal here and now. 

From that elevated perspective, the question becomes: can virtual worlds provide a memorial worthy of that living memory? 

This is a direct teleport link to the Second Life site remembering Kristallnacht.  Please visit. It recreates to some extent the "night of broken glass", the evening in 1938 when Nazi Germany began its decisive slide into genocide.  The SL installation is an earnest attempt to be an educational resource and immersive testament to history; in my view, however, it's only partially successful, primarily limited by Second Life's awkward user interface and lag-prone server architecture.  While I absolutely recommend it to experienced SL Residents, it's not ready as designed for new users.   

Why do I say that?  Here's my tour:

You start out in what looks to be a newspaper office from the era; the premise of the tour is that you're a journalist reporting from the scene.  However, this metaphor gets quickly muddled, since the memorial mixes a recreation of a German city block from the 30s, with contemporary audio/video interviews of Holocaust survivors.

The newsroom magically opens up, and a text instruction tells you to "touch everything" in this recreation of a Jewish area in a Germany under siege.  Trouble is, most of the objects you try to touch (such as this book) are frustratingly non-interactive.

There are interactive elements, however, such as anti-Semitic graffiti on the wall, or this news kiosk with anti-Jewish propaganda.   Ideally, the camera controls would enable you to easily read these hateful fliers up close, but you can't.  Instead, you're given a translation via Second Life's internal messaging system-- distracting and difficult to read.   

There are red footprints located at key points throughout the installation; standing on them triggers sound effects and audio interviews from Holocaust survivors.  This is a smart piece of interactive design.  But again, you're taken out of the immersive experience by the SL interface (see above) which imposes itself into the historical recreation-- not to mention random chat and Instant Messages. 

Architecturally, much of the builds are beautifully realized, with shadow and texture that convey a sense of being there.  There is some limited interactivity to make these buildings recreate the night of Kristallnacht, as well.  When you approach this synagogue, for instance, glass begins to rain down on you.  In my case, however, the sound propagation lagged behind the visuals, so I only heard the breaking glass many seconds after the shards started falling.  Veterans of Second Life are used to lag like this, and worse; here, however, the lag undermines an experience above all others that should be seamless, and enveloping.

In the exit foyer, you have a chance to watch contemporary video of Holocaust survivors, testifying their experiences to that dark night.  This is, perhaps, the most powerful part of the exhibit; but the power comes from the video's undeniable authenticity, not their virtual surroundings.

The best I can say about Second Life's Kristallnacht exhibit is this: it shows a glimmer of virtual worlds' potential to immersively educate, and points the way to iterative improvements.  In the real world, I was fortunate to visit Auschwitz in 2006, and only last month, Libeskind's profoundly realized Jewish Museum in Berlin.  However, most people will not be able to visit such places.  For them, a virtual space with an official imprimatur like the US Holocaust Museum can eventually become a viable alternative to costly and taxing real world travel. 

To make it worthy of the memory, however, I think drastic improvements still remain: a new user interface that's fully integrated with the experience, for starters.  (As an inspirational resource, I'd point to the classic videogame Bioshock, which succeeds at this within a fictional setting.) The memorial designers must also decide whether the installation is recreating the historical event, or re-contextualizing archives of the event, i.e. video interviews, photos, etc.  A synthesis of both, in my opinion, is confusing and awkward. (Maybe the Involve 3D project would have been better were it divided into two sites, one that's purely a historical recreation, the other archival.)  The challenge of truly remembering the real from the vantage point of the virtual remains a daunting one.

But this is just one avatar's perspective, I should note; others, like Crap Mariner, have come away profoundly moved by the site.  Whatever your view, do go, and after you have, please offer your thoughts here.

Comments

[rikomatic]

Here's my own quick video tour of Kristalnacht, which I think made more of an impression on me than on Hamlet.

The sim is beautifully rendered, and the integration of audio commentary, interactive elements, sound effects, and imagery from the period closely mirrored my experience visiting the Holocaust Museum in DC. And the added ability to tour the sim with other people makes it even more powerful.

[Hillary Bloch]

My personal identity is rooted in the shoah and the events immediately afterwards: the barring of sardine-packed jewish refugee boats by nations around the world (the U.S. included), UN Resolution 181 from which the state of Israel was born on May 14, 1948, the invasion of Israel by Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq on May 15, 1948. What I find to be the more profound "blackest stain in the Western conscience" is that in my lifetime I have witnessed the Cambodian genocide of 1978-, the Kurdistan killings of 1988, the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the Srebrenica genocide of 1995, the Kosovo genocide of 1998-, the Congolese massacres of 2000, the Darfur genocide of 2003-... Anything which reminds us of what we must never forget and which shakes our denial of conscience is needed.

[David Klevan]

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum willl be hosting a presentation in Second Life by museum historian and educator, Ann Millin, on "Reporting on Kristallnacht: Propaganda and the Press" telling the story of the German government's attempt to hide the truth about Kristallnacht and how American journalists got the story out to the world.

The program will take place in conjunction with International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Tuesday, January 27 @ 3pm ET/12pm SLT, and it will last about one hour (including time for Q&A).

The SLURL can be found at http://snurl.com/7r1i6.