Historical Digital Humanities & Survivor Narrative Preservation
Premiered in March 2025 in collaboration with historical scholars at the UT Dallas Ackerman Center, delivering an emotionally resonant, historically rigorous virtual reality documentary experience.
The Holocaust VR Experience is an educational historical documentary developed at the VAST Lab in close consultation with Holocaust historians and educators at the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies. The project leverages immersive virtual reality to bring archival photographs, survivor testimonies, and historical artifacts into a solemn spatial context.
Ethical VR Design & Sensitive Storytelling
Designing immersive historical narratives around traumatic 20th-century history demands deep ethical care:
- Spatial Restraint: Prioritizing historical artifacts, audio testimonies, and solemn environments over sensationalized dramatization.
- Atmospheric Lighting Direction: Utilizing Unreal Engine 5’s Lumen illumination to sculpt quiet, contemplative light-and-shadow volumes that mirror the dignity of survivor oral histories.
- Archival Photogrammetry: Digitizing physical historical artifacts from university archives into 3D assets that students can inspect with natural head movement.
Educational Deployment
Deployed across university classrooms and museum workshops, the application provides educators with a powerful pedagogical tool to foster historical empathy, counter disinformation, and preserve eyewitness memories for future generations.