Fighting to remember

About the Work A big part of Israeli culture is to keep Holocaust remembrance alive for eternity– bequeathing stories down through the generations. While antisemitism spikes to an all-time high - a 10-year 55% increase in antisemitic activity in Europe and 150% increase in antisemitic social media activity– Holocaust remembrance is put at stake. With only 150,600 survivors remaining in Israel, decreasing further each month– it's crucial for the future generation to keep it going. The problem: most teens have never met a survivor, schools reduced the subject’s volume and delayed its entry into the curriculum– making the Holocaust narrative foreign and uninteresting. Since teens have many worlds (especially gaming) to hide in, most prominently during the Memorial Day media shutdown– connecting them to the Holocaust is a tall order. The only way forward is to assimilate the historic stories through disruption of their online world, integrating organically into their language and culture. Our mission: cement history in Gen-Zer's culture by bringing teens closer to the real stories and actual survivors before they are gone completely - using their gaming addiction to our favour. Israeli teens leads the world in gaming- 65% playing more than 5 times a day (50% global average). On average, they dedicate 2.6 hours to gaming - but on Memorial day shut-down, this grows exponentially. So, we took-over their gaming addictions- collaborating with famous gaming influencers on the fan-favourite Call of Duty WWII, which depicts authentic Holocaust locations – and recreated history with our living survivors’ testimonies through gameplay. The big idea: teaming up famous gaming influencers (who are Gen Z’ers themselves) with Holocaust survivors who told their survival stories via the game’s platform. Thus, the gamers listened to the survivor’s tales and live-streamed a walk-through the game replica of WWII, mapping out their words using the game's images. Basically, we not only brought the stories to TikTok and YouTube, not only connected them to teens' worlds and context – but brought them to life and gave them a whole new dimension and longevity. We brought these online-meetings to TikTok and YouTube, inserting them into teen context, reaching high engagement and assimilating them into Gen-Z culture.