Inside Kristallnacht - The Claims Conference | Clapboard Ad Archive
Inside Kristallnacht from The Claims Conference and makemepulse stands as one of 2024’s most technically ambitious and emotionally urgent integrated campaigns in public service, merging immersive XR storytelling with living survivor testimony to confront users with the enduring trauma and hope encoded in Holocaust memory. Commissioned by The Claims Conference and co-produced with USC Shoah Foundation, and rolled out in partnership with Meta and UNESCO, this web-based mixed reality experience harnesses interactive VR, desktop and mobile access to educate a new generation on the November Pogrom of 1938 — an event more widely remembered as Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, which signified the escalation of Nazi violence against Jewish communities in Germany and Austria. The campaign uses what Clapboard’s taxonomy would classify as FORMAT#7—Presenter Testimonial, centering the narrative authority of Dr. Charlotte Knobloch, a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor whose direct, present-day voice guides users scene-by-scene through a harrowing 25-minute interactive journey. Each of four sharply delineated chapters combines live action, hand-drawn black-and-white 3D animation, AI and authentic archival assets, immersing users in intimate reconstructions of Knobloch’s family life, public spaces thick with antisemitic propaganda, and the devastation inflicted on Jewish homes, synagogues, and livelihoods. As the only survivor voice in the experience, Knobloch’s testimonial is never abstracted but staged as a personal address, enabling a uniquely credible and emotional connection to users who can ask her questions directly through a natural language AI interface developed by USC Shoah Foundation — a format aligning with Gen Z’s expectation of active dialogue in content encounters. Through atmospheric visuals and sound, tactically layered historical documentation, and navigable interactive affords, Inside Kristallnacht expands Holocaust education beyond remembrance to experiential empathy, culminating in the final chapter’s 360-degree video journey through the newly rebuilt Ohel Jakob synagogue and cultural center in Munich that Knobloch herself was instrumental in establishing. Woven into a global educational program that spans US, German, UK, Austrian, Israeli, and French cultural institutions, the campaign’s multi-platform reach and accessibility foreground its strategic intent: to inscribe survivor testimony into a living digital archive before generational memory is lost. Clapboard rates this 74/100. As the public service sector grapples with the challenges of generational distance and digital disengagement, Inside Kristallnacht signals how testimonial-led, mixed-reality storytelling can redefine how historical trauma is taught, enacted, and remembered.
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