Holocaust museum uses augmented reality to teach history
- Augmented reality has brought the Tower of Faces exhibit to life
- Visitors use iPads to watch videos on 30 of the exhibit's pre-war photos
- The technology took years to implement and hit some snags in the rollout
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon walks through the Tower of Faces as he tours the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s permanent exhibition with the museum’s Chief of Staff William Parsons (R) in Washington on February 28, 2011. The three-story tower displays photographs taken between 1890 and 1941 in Eishishok, a small town in what is now Lithuania of a Jewish community that existed for 900 years. In 1941, an SS mobile killing squad entered the village and within two days massacred the Jewish population. AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
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(NewsNation) — For more than 30 years the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has kept alive the memories of 6 million Jews and other victims of the Holocaust, and does so by using cutting-edge technology.
The Washington D.C. museum’s most recent example features augmented reality technology, used in the Tower of Faces exhibit on the third floor of the museum. It’s home to more than 1,000 pre-war photographs of the Jewish community of Eisikes, Lithuania.
When designing the project, the museum’s Future Projects group wondered if there was some way to tell the story of the people in those photographs.
“The majority of people in those photographs were murdered over the course of three days in September 1941…they can’t speak. They can’t say anything,” said Sarah Lumbard, Senior Digital Curator at the museum.
After years of planning and testing, the museum deployed a set of eight iPads for visitors. The iPad first shows a 30-second video about the town; then, visitors can hold it up to 30 of the exhibit photographs and learn the stories of the people in them.
Unlike virtual reality, which gives a user a full-screen experience, augmented reality places computer-generated imagery on top of whatever a person is seeing.
The photo is briefly colorized and then visitors are given a written and verbal narration about the people in the photograph. It has a lasting impact on visitors, Lumbard said.
“We see students coming together around an iPad, holding it up to another photo. Going and finding a friend who’s like, ‘No no no no no, come back, you need to see this,'” she said.
She argued that the technology has made visitors think more deeply about the photos in the room.
“This room has gone from a pass-through, where people actually walk in and look around, to a moment where people… the majority of whom were murdered, they come to life for a moment. And people stop and they’ll explore anywhere from two to four photos, sometimes seven,” she said.
Lumbard estimated that around 30% of visitors spend around two minutes at the exhibit, as opposed to the 30 seconds they were spending before.
Lumbard acknowledged that it took years to develop the technology and deploy the exhibit successfully. The current version of the augmented reality software was in development since 2020 and there were initially growing pains as people would drop the iPads or software updates messed up the app they were using.
But she said what the technology is producing makes it worth it to help visitors learn about the Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.
“This is a moment where people stop and they do something completely different… than what they did in any other part of the museum, and it sticks. They remember it,” she said. “And they’ll remember one person here, maybe. And I think that’s enough because they’re one of the six million.”
