2026/06/22 by Elsie Leask, David Nally · 1 voice
Psychology · Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration #Museums and Cultural Heritage #Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy
paper · doi:10.14324/herj.23.1.13
openalex publication_date 2026/06/22 · openalex created_date 2026/06/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/07
Holocaust survivor testimony is increasingly being preserved using emerging technologies in preparation for a post-survivor era. A key approach to this process is exemplified by the Dimensions in Testimony platform developed by the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation, which involves the utilisation of natural language-processing artificial intelligence to facilitate interactive, language-driven experiences with specially filmed testimony. Alongside receiving praise for its authentic representation and participatory capabilities, this approach has given rise to ethical debates about how oral testimonies can be preserved, since there are some elements of human experiences that defy translation into digital media. In this article, we address the research question: how can museum educators work with interactive video testimonies to generate historical consciousness? The contribution that we aim to make is to broaden and clarify the scope for future human–artificial intelligence interactions in this context by elaborating on the expressions of historical consciousness that were embedded in perspectives of museum educators at the Sydney Jewish Museum. Interviews took place with these professionals in 2024, and a key articulation was the present and future need for developing responsive pedagogical practices to support critical and appropriate engagement with testimonies. Our findings have implications that can be generalised to other museum educators and history teachers who engage with content about the Holocaust in their practice, particularly as forms of oral testimony become available online, such as with Dimensions in Testimony. Our closing suggests measures that educators can adopt to address concerns when incorporating Dimensions in Testimony in Holocaust education to provide learning experiences that develop historical consciousness.