Thousands of videos and millions of views in just four years - that’s the track record of the TikTok Shoah Commemoration & Education Initiative (SCEI). Since 2021, it has supported memorial sites, museums, and organisations worldwide in producing high-reach content for the social media platform. The videos are online, but as new content keeps flooding in, they had been becoming harder to find - until now. Shoah Stories is a platform in the form of a website that also serves as a new stage for the most informative short videos. The initiative is complemented by masterclasses on short-form video production, a conference for subject-matter experts, and an impact study.
Shoah Stories is led by the Anne Frank Zentrum and supported by funding from the Alfred Landecker Foundation. Additionally, researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem are studying the impact of the short videos on young audiences and evaluating the project as a whole.
Short videos are becoming increasingly important in education
It’s not just TikTok, but also Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and other platforms that shape today’s media habits with their predominantly short videos. For many young people, these short videos are the primary source of information, entertainment – and increasingly, education. Therefore, it is crucial to create fact-based content and actively combat antisemitism and misinformation about the Holocaust on these platforms.
The Alfred Landecker Foundation supports Shoah Stories to ensure that these valuable videos remain visible in the long term and can be used for educational purposes. The videos come from all over the world and are intended to reach an international audience. The primary target groups are young people and educators.
Shoah Stories helps educators teach about the Holocaust
A dedicated and growing section supports educators with teaching materials, enabling them to integrate the videos into their educational work. The training programmes are primarily aimed at staff from memorial sites and museums. Over the course of the project, international workshops, training sessions, and a conference will follow to develop these materials and promote the production of more short video content. Young people are also encouraged to contribute their own content in remembrance of the Holocaust and to combat antisemitism, helping to keep the memory alive and to challenge group-based hatred and discrimination.