The small group of students in USC’s first generation living and learning community (LLC) who gathered in the warm reception room at the Anne Frank Center on Feb. 21 didn’t know quite what they were getting into. All these students knew was that Epic Games had partnered with the Anne Frank Center to tell stories from the Holocaust.
It all started when managing director and co-founder of the Anne Frank Center in Los Angeles, Sofi Shield, read an article about a Holocaust museum created within the video game Fortnite called Voices of the Forgotten. The virtual museum is full of Holocaust stories in the form of videos, audios, text and sculptures, she said.
Epic Games is the video game and software developer company that created video game, Fortnite.
Shield reached out to the creator and independent game director Luc Bernard, and the two came up with an idea of a similar Holocaust museum created by students. They tentatively titled the project Anne Frank's Young Voices, she said.
“(Bernard) seemed excited to work with people who had a like-minded vision about the need and potential for change in the way Holocaust education is being done," Shield said.
Bernard said that with Holocaust education down and antisemitism on the rise, according to the global advocacy organization American Jewish Committee, it was time to think outside of the box.
He said he wanted to give young people a voice to continue talking, learning and sharing the important stories of the Holocaust. So far, he and the Anne Frank Center have done that through two pilot programs, one in Los Angeles and one at USC.
“It's really, if you look at it, about passing off the baton to the next generation,” Bernard said. “It's something which won't happen inside legacy because it's too slow … that's why I'm working with Anne Frank, because it has to be properly done.”
University of South Carolina students creating a museum panel on Feb. 21, 2025, at the Anne Frank Center. The First Gen LLC set up a collaboration with Epic Games to spread knowledge and awareness of the Holocaust.
Before starting up at USC, Epic Games and the Los Angeles Anne Frank Center conducted a pilot program for Young Voices with students at Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles.
Shield conducted research and compiled a list of Holocaust survivors for students to create a panels about. Panels are a place that a player in the game can approach and gain information about something. Each panel told the story of one Holocaust survivor or victim.
The pilot program at USC has the same mission.
The Anne Frank Center in Los Angeles is a sister organization of USC’s Anne Frank Center, which is the central hub for Anne Frank Education in North America.
USC’s Anne Frank Center’s executive director, Doyle Stevik, recommended Education professor Stephen Thompson and the first generation living and learning community to participate in the program, center educational specialist, Donna Tarney said.
“The Anne Frank Center is really all about lifting up the voices of people who don't normally have an opportunity to have their voices lifted," Tarney said. "They'll get to know Anne's story. They'll get to develop computer skills. It's just a win, win.”
Thompson is the director of USC’s first generation living and learning community. He said the pilot program offered a good opportunity to his students to not only gain resume building and networking experience, but to know the history of national and worldwide persecution.
“From my perspective, there's a lot of important connections for those students to make about society, how we treat marginalized people, and (how) we marginalized groups of people,” Thompson said. “And so I ... had strong feelings (that) we needed to find some way to connect.”
Thompson recruited 15 students, and a $100 stipend was provided to each student who participated in the project.
First-year computer science student Sebastian Gaviria said he heard about the opportunity from a newsletter that Thompson sent out to the first generation living and learning community.
Gavira did not know what to expect, but he thought it would be a good opportunity to gain professional experience.
“Actual developers and people use these types of skills,” Gavira said. “Also, it’s just a nice experience to be able to preserve these people’s memories.”
The program included three workshops. The first was on Friday Feb. 21 at the Anne Frank Center. During the event, students got to know each other and learn elements of storytelling. At the end of the meeting, students were assigned the survivors they will create their panel on.
Second-year computer science student, Chancellor Hanner is creating his panel to tell the story of Fred Bachner, a Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivor.
"He was evacuating further through the defense of Poland," Hanner said. "That's when he ran into his first encounter with German troops. So far that's what I know."
The last two workshops were on Feb. 27 and 28 in the Gambrell computer lab with technical instructor Chantal Paz, who worked with Bernard to create Voices of the Forgotten among other projects.
Over two days, Paz taught students how to use Unreal Engine for Fortnite, Epic Game's software, to create the panels.
While the Young Voices Museum won't be able to contain every panel created by students in the pilot programs, the museum hopes to continue conducting pilot programs in 2025 to eventually roll out the program nation-wide in 2026, Bernard said.
Ultimately, Bernard hopes to create the biggest crowd-source museum ever made, he said.
"(It's) quite ambitious," Bernard said. "But I come from tech and gaming, so to us, this is super simple."
Bernard said the Anne Frank Center welcomed the opportunity to promote Holocaust education through new platforms.
“It's been really interesting to see how people who are naturally drawn to that (video game) world, like how we can reach them with almost a different language, but with the same goal,” Shield said.
Bernard said that these new platforms for Holocaust conversation give young people a voice to continue talking, learning and sharing important stories. He said working with the Anne Frank Centers ensured that message was being properly communicated.
Shield said there are many questions about how technology impacts the field of Holocaust education. She also said that even if the subject shows up in a video game, the Holocaust shouldn't lose any of its serious or somber nature.
"People still need to understand what happened," Shield said. "It's not a joke. It's not a game.”