The Grimme Online Award has announced this year's nominations. Drawing from almost 1,000 submissions, 27 projects across four categories were shortlisted, including three projects funded by the Alfred Landecker Foundation: the "#LastSeen. Images of Nazi Deportations" image atlas, "Forced Spaces", a digital exhibition, and the "Right-wing Terrorism since the NSU" database.
#LastSeen has been nominated in the "Knowledge and Education" category. This joint project of the Free University of Berlin collects, contextualises, curates and publishes historical photographs of the deportations from the Reich territory from 1938 to 1945. The result is an interactive digital exhibition aimed at both researchers and the interested public that encourages people to engage with the stories in and behind the photos.
Also nominated in the "Knowledge and Education" category was the digital exhibition "Zwangsräume" (“Forced Homes”), a project by the Aktives Museum Berlin e.V., which sheds light on antisemitic housing policies in Berlin between 1939 and 1945. Using selected house histories, visitors can find out how Jews were assigned certain apartments to forcibly relocate to, under what conditions they lived there and how the flats were dissolved after the deportations.
The comprehensive "Right-wing terrorism since the NSU" database by CeMAS (Centre for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy) has been nominated in the "Information" category. The data project systematically records cases of right-wing terrorism in Germany since the NSU's self-disclosure in 2011, analyses them in an interactive and factual manner.
"The projects we support make a decisive contribution to keeping the memory of the past alive and to dealing with the question of how vulnerable democracy is today and where we need to do more to strengthen it in the here and now," says Silke Mülherr, Co-CEO of the foundation. "We are delighted that three projects from our funding community have been nominated. The shortlist alone shines a spotlight on the important work of the teams that are committed to protecting minorities and safeguarding democracy, especially in times like these."
The Grimme Online Award is one of the most important honours for online publications in Germany and has been awarded by the Grimme Institute since 2001. The award ceremony will take place on 16 October in Marl. In addition to the projects sponsored by the Alfred Landecker Foundation, other formats that deal with the period of National Socialism and the memory of the Holocaust have also been nominated.
The complete shortlist in German can be viewed here.
Click here for the public vote.