Times are troubled. Racist crimes are more frequent than ever and the trivialization of the despicable desensitizes public opinion. While Nazism is invoked all the time, even to criticize anti-Covid measures, NPR describes the efforts of museums dedicated to the Holocaust to replant the milestones of decency, awaken empathy and recall the reality of the crime of genocide.
Public radio cites the example of the Illinois Holocaust Museum, which now offers the public to follow in virtual reality the journey of George Brent, a 93-year-old Auschwitz survivor. Equipped with virtual reality (VR) helmets, visitors find themselves in an instant in the middle of the sealed wagons and the arrival platform of the death camp, assailed by the cries of SS officers and the barking of dogs. Yes… the use of this gadget could seem very trivial if George Brent did not participate in this “return journey”, stuck in history with all his humanity, thanks to the special effects on a green screen, for lack of having been able to return to Europe for the filming of the film.
At the University of Southern California, experts from the Shoah Foundation, created by Steven Spielberg, interviewed and filmed for days another survivor, Pinchas Gutter, who lives in Toronto, Canada. Gutter, whose face is framed in close-up on the screen, answers many questions from the public about his survival in the camps, thanks to an artificial intelligence program which draws the appropriate extracts from his recorded remarks. The foundation’s specialists realized