GLAMi nomination: the digital Jewish Monument
institution: Jewish Cultural Quarter
category: Exhibition and Collection Extension
https://www.joodsmonument.nl
The Jewish Monument is an online monument that commemorates the more than 104.000 Jewish men, women and children who have been prosecuted in the Netherlands during the second World War and have not survived the Holocaust.
Homepage
The website provides an impressive overview of the unimaginable scale of this crime against humanity but also features detailed and community enriched information about every individual victim. On the homepage, every victim is represented by one pixel. The closer you zoom in at the pixels, the more details about the victims become visible. People with a name and face start emerging from the vast amount of pixels.
Personal page
In Jewish tradition names are very important. As long as your name is remembered, you will not be forgotten. By digitally visiting a person’s page in the monument this person is remembered. This concept is visualized on the homepage by highlighting all persons who have been visited recently.
Every victim in the monument has a page containing detailed information like birthdate, date of death, family relations and residential addresses. This information can be complemented by the users of the monument. By enriching basic information with personal memories and additional information, an unique and ever-growing monument is created.
Online community
The Jewish Monument has more than 8500 active community members worldwide. Since 2005, over 80.000 contributions were made. Amongst them personal stories, pictures and calls for information. The website has over 30.000 monthly visitors.
National Holocaust Museum
Since the first of september, the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam contains a room dedicated to the online Monument. The homepage is projected onto a wall in life size and shows real time information about victims that have recently been commemorated. The fact that there is an entire room dedicated to the online Monument, shows the value and the importance of the Monument for both the Museum, its visitors and the Jewish community.