Augmented Reality in Holocaust Museums and Memorials

Augmented reality (AR) is a new medium with the potential to revolutionize education in both schools and museums by offering methods of immersion and engagement that would not be attainable without technology. Utilizing augmented reality, museums have the capability to combine the atmosphere of their buildings and exhibits with interactive applications to create an immersive environment and change the way that audiences experience them and therefore providing the ability to perform additional historical perspective taking. Holocaust museums and memorials are candidates for augmented reality exhibits; however, using this technology for them is not without concerns due to the sensitive nature of the subject. Ethically, should audiences be immersed in a setting like the Holocaust? How is augmented reality currently being used within Holocaust museums and memorials? What measures should be taken to ensure that augmented reality experiences are purely educational and neither disrespectful to the victims nor cause secondary trauma? These are the questions that this chapter will seek to answer in order to further develop the field of augmented reality for Holocaust education. To achieve this, previous AR apps in Holocaust museums and memorials have been reviewed, and a series of studies on the usage of AR for Holocaust education have been examined to identify the ethical considerations that must be made and the ramifications of utilizing AR technology to recreate tragic periods of history.