Civil Society Briefing “The Future of Memory: Holocaust Remembrance, History and New Media”

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From 2009 until August 2019, Ms. Fleming served UNHCR as Head of Global Communications and Spokesperson for the High Commissioner. At UNHCR, she led global media outreach campaigns, social media engagement and a multimedia news service to distribute and place stories designed to generate empathy and stir action for refugees. Ms. Fleming is a frequent interview guest on international media platforms, and her talks are featured on TED.com. She is author of the book, A Hope More Powerful than the Sea, and host of the award-winning podcast, Awake at Night. Ms. Fleming joined UNHCR from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), where she served for eight years as Spokesperson and Head of the Media and Outreach. Prior to IAEA, she headed the Press and Public Information team at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

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Robert Skinner is the Deputy Director and Chief of Partnerships and Global Engagement in the Outreach Division of United Nations Department of Global Communications. Prior to this, Robert was the Director of the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Washington, DC, serving in this role from April 2021 to September 2021 and from November 2015 to July 2018. In between these periods, Robert was Senior Special Advisor in the UN’s Department of Global Communications, focusing on the UN’s COVID-19 Communications Response Initiative, and the Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Partnerships.

Prior to joining the UN, Robert was the Executive Director in the New York Office of the United Nations Foundation. Before joining the Foundation in 2006, Robert held several positions in the United States Department of State, including as Deputy Spokesperson at the United States Mission to the United Nations in New York, and as Public Affairs Officer for the United States Embassy in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. He also held diplomatic posts in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire and San Salvador, El Salvador. Robert was an attorney in the Office of the Cook County Public Defender, Chicago, Illinois before starting his diplomatic career. Robert holds a law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Oakland University in the United States. He is married and has two children.

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Dr. Eva Pfanzelter is an Associate Professor at and deputy head of the Department of Contemporary History as well as the deputy head of the Digital Humanities Center at the University of Innsbruck. Her fields of research and teaching include European and Regional Contemporary History, Holocaust Studies, Memory and Politics of Memory, Migration, Digital Humanities. Her latest book on “Digital Holocaust. Mediations of the Genocide between History, Politics of Memory and Commerce” (in German) is currently in print (with Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht/Böhlau Library of Contemporary History). She is also the leader of the DH-group in the Horizo2020-project “NewsEye. A Digital Investigator for Historical News”, and project leader of the transnational projects (Italy-Austria; national and regional funding):

• a) “ReMIGRA: Return Migration as an Interdisciplinary Research Area Using the Example of the South Tyrolean ‘Return Option’”;
• b) “Re-Visiting Forced Fascist Migration: The case of the South Tyrolean Option to Nazi Germany: Museums, Memories and Digital Spaces.”

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Dr. Victoria Grace Walden is Director of Learning Enhancement and Senior Lecturer at the School of Media, Arts and Humanities, University of Sussex. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the academic platform Digital Holocaust Memory, authored Cinematic Intermedialities and Contemporary Holocaust Memory (Palgrave Macmillan 2019) and most recently edited Digital Holocaust Memory, Education and Research (Palgrave Macmillan 2021). She is currently Primary Investigator on the research project Digital Holocaust Memory: Hyperconnective Museums and Archives (funded by a British Academy/ Leverhulme Small Grant).

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Ms. Stefania Manca is a Research Director at the Institute of Educational Technology of the National Research Council of Italy. Her research interests include social media and social network sites in formal and informal learning, teacher education, professional development, and digital scholarship. She is currently working on a three-year research project about the application of social media to Holocaust education from a learning ecologies perspective. She is the project coordinator of the IHRA grant “Countering Holocaust distortion on Social Media. Promoting the positive use of Internet social technologies for teaching and learning about the Holocaust,” which includes the University of Weingarten (Germany), the University of Florence (Italy) and the following participating organizations: Yad Vashem (Israel), Mémorial de la Shoah de Paris (France) and Mauthausen Memorial (Austria).

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Dr. Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann is a Senior Lecturer for Visual Culture, Film Studies, German- and European Studies in the Department of Communication and Journalism and the European Forum at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He teaches about Holocaust memory in the digital age, visual history of the GDR, European memory cultures, European Cinema, and audiovisual research methods. His research includes audiovisual and digital memory of the Holocaust, and the use and appropriation of archive footage. He is a consortium member in the Horizon 2020 project Visual History of the Holocaust: Rethinking Curation in the Digital Age (1999-2022) and Co-PI in the DFG-project (Con)sequential Images – An archeology of iconic film footage from the Nazi era (2021-2029). His latest publications include: „i-Memory: Selfies and Self-Witnessing in #Uploading_Holocaust (2016). In: Digital Holocaust Memory: Education and Research. Ed. Victoria Walden. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan 2021, 213-235 (with Lital Henig),  “Commemorating from a distance: the digital transformation of Holocaust memory in times of COVID-19.” Media, Culture & Society 43:6 (2020), 1095-1112, “Witnessing Eva Stories: Media witnessing and self-inscription in social media memory.” New Media & Society. 8 October 2020 (with Lital Henig).

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Mr. Karel Fracapane is a Programme Specialist in the Education Sector of UNESCO where he leads activities relating to Holocaust and genocide education and hate speech, including countering antisemitism, in the context of UNESCO’s work on global citizenship education. Before that, he served as a policy officer at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as Head of the Department of International Relations of the Shoah Memorial in Paris, coordinating activities pertaining to Holocaust and genocide studies in several regions of the world. He was also the first Executive Secretary of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).

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Mr. Cory Weiss is the Director of Digital Advocacy and Deputy Director of Communications at the World Jewish Congress (WJC). He joined the WJC in 2014 after completing and internship with the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

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Dr. Julana Bredtmann is a Program Officer at the Permanent Office of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) which unites governments and experts to strengthen, advance and promote Holocaust education, research and remembrance. She is coordinating the initiative Global Task Force Against Holocaust Distortion which aims to increase awareness and provide practical resources for policy and decision makers.