Holocaust story dramatised for the Instagram generation
By James Herring on Thursday, May 2, 2019
Israeli entrepreneurs have dramatised the plight of a Jewish teenager murdered by the Nazis by imagining her documenting her final days on Instagram.
With the global community of survivors rapidly shrinking advocates of Holocaust remembrance are seeking creative ways to share witnesses’ stories with a younger generation.
“What if a girl in the Holocaust had Instagram?” asks a trailer for the “Eva Stories.”
Instagram story posts show a cast in period costume and locations acting out the diary of Eva Heyman, a 13-year-old Hungarian deported to her death in Auschwitz.
An Instagram story shows her dancing with friends and laughing with her family.
Eva’s life seems fun and carefree until a man walks into frame and says, “dirty Jew.”
The project is the brainchild of hi-tech entrepreneur Mati Kochavi and his daughter Maya.
Maya Kochavi said “There’s a lot that young kids will really feel and relate to and hopefully this continues as her journey becomes more difficult and she starts to experience some of the more horrific parts of the story,” Kochavi said.
The idea has been widely praised but has also received some backlash.
Some have complained that the use of Instagram , hashtags and boomerangs cheapens the horrors of the Holocaust.
The project has captured global attention was endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
