Re-Read, Re-Remember. Digital Archiving and Jewish Material Heritage

Digital humanities, as well as digital archiving, are increasingly used in research not only on the Holocaust, but also on Jewish culture, tradition, and heritage. The digitization and dissemination of collections, online tours of museum spaces, or the creation of online atlases and maps are not the only practices we are currently engaged in. The latest technologies and interdisciplinary research alliances allow us to recover what has been forgotten and to preserve what has been destroyed – under the influence of atmospheric factors (weather) and human factors (vandalism).

The main topic of our next webinar will be material Jewish heritage and digital activities for its archiving and reconstruction. What is it like to work with 3D scanning of selected examples of cemetery art? How to create high-quality digital reconstructions of matzevot from photographs or sketches? How are personal micro-histories recovered thanks to such projects and the democratization of access to archival documents?

The answer will be provided by the example of the joint activities of the Urban Memory Foundation and the Spark Civic Accelerator Foundation for three Jewish cemeteries in Wrocław (in Ślężna Street, Lotnicza Street and Gwarna Street) – two preserved and one “hidden”. Often discussed as separate elements of the local heritage, for the first time they will be treated equally and placed at the center of a popularization and research initiative carried out in cooperation with the Jewish Community in Wroclaw and the Museum of Cemetery Art – City Museum in Wroclaw (as part of the “MultiMemo” project financed by the European Union).

The above activities will be presented in the test phase, in the work-in-progress formula, and after scanning the QR codes, participants will be able to interact with the discussed examples on their own smartphones. Together, we will take a look behind the scenes of many months of tedious and extensive teamwork.

We will consider how digital humanities and digital archiving can be useful for researchers in different fields and how they can be used in the educational process. We will also get to know the perspective of Daniel Ljunggren, a PhD student at the Technical University of Dresden and lecturer at the University of Gothenburg, who has used this technology to reconstruct part of his family history: the Hadds, famous architects from pre-war Breslau.

The last part of the meeting will be devoted to reflection on the use of the 3D scanning method for the exhibition “Putting Things Back”, which will be opened in Wroclaw in May and will later be available online to the public all over the world.