Remembrance culture via Instagram, is that possible? The remembrance project "Eva Stories" tries to introduce young people to the suffering of the Jews during the Second World War.
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- "Eva Stories": Holocaust on Instagram
- The life of the real Eva Heyman
- "The memory of the Holocaust fades"
What if there had been social media during the Holocaust? What would we have seen?
Her Instagram profile is different from all the others: in the stories of Eve, the Holocaust is told from the eyes of the then living Jews. The memorial project "Eva Stories" tries to introduce young people to the suffering of the Second World War and to keep the memory alive. With videos directly from the Jewish ghetto, a better connection to this terrible chapter of history is to be established. A diary of horror in the form of Instagram stories. A new form of memory culture.
"Eva Stories": Holocaust on Instagram
From the point of view of the 13-year-old girl Eva Heyman, portrayed by an actress, viewers on Instagram get insights into life in 1944 and into the suffering of the Holocaust. The first video will be uploaded on February 13, 1944. The spectators are very close, no matter if Eva celebrates her birthday, falls in love for the first (and only) time, or is deported to the ghetto and later to the concentration camp Auschwitz.
While the first stories are still full of hashtags, colorful gifs and polls, and Eva shows up as many teenagers do today, their contributions are minimized over time and the colors fade. Finally, her digital diary breaks off on May 30th. Her story ends with her deportation on the train to the concentration camp Auschwitz. There she died on October 17, 1944.
Check out this post on InstagramEva.Stories Official Trailer
A post shared by Eva (@ eva.stories) on Apr 28, 2019 at 4:36 PDT
The life of the real Eva Heyman
The story told on Instagram is based on true events. The basis for the project were the diary entries of the real Eva Heyman. She was a Hungarian Jew who lived with her grandparents and was deported along with them to Auschwitz concentration camp, where she died only a few months before the end of the war. Her mother Ágnes Zsolt survived as the only family member of the Shoah and published her daughter's diary. However, the story of 13-year-old Eva Heyman, who is considered to be Hungarian Anne Frank, was only translated into German in 2012.
"The memory of the Holocaust fades"
The memorial project "Eva Stories" was initiated by the Israeli businessman Mati Kochavi and financed by his own hand. Together with his daughter Maya Kochavi and about 400 other people, he put his idea into action. "The memory of the Holocaust outside of Israel fades. We found this journal and said, 'Let's assume that Eva had a smartphone instead of a pen and paper. Let us document what happened to her. ' That's why we moved the smartphone back to 1944, "explains Kochavi.
The film was shot mainly in Ukraine. The project was first published in May of this year for the Israeli Yom Hashoah, the Holocaust Remembrance Day. Since then, Eva's story has been on Instagram and has created worldwide interest. It has already reached over 1.6 million subscribers . Eve's story is told in English with Hebrew subtitles. All videos together come to a length of 45 minutes.
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