Steven Frank, 81, travels extensively and joins the chaps when he can. As a Jew, resident in Holland during the1940s, he has shocking childhood stories, especially his grim experiences in the Czech concentration camp Theresienstadt, where he was one of just 93 survivors out of 15,000 children.
Steven has been presenting talks to schools and groups for 21 years and is a speaker at the The National Holocaust Centre and Museum (NHCM) in Newark, Nottinghamshire. Now, thanks to technology, he can answer questions without being in the same room as the person asking.
Steven is part of The Forever Project devised by NHCM who were aware that holocaust survivors won’t always be around to tell the tales. He was the first of ten involved to go ‘live’ at the end of January this year. The project is in pilot phase and Frank’s testimony is the only one currently available
“ I look like I am sitting in a big red leather armchair – although actually it’s a 3D interactive video” smiles Steven, “I spent a week near York two years ago and was filmed answering over 900 questions on the subject.”
“ We built questions based on our knowledge of the stories and what children typically ask “ adds Sarah Coward, Project Leader at NHCM. “The technology converts what people say into text, feeds it to the system, searches and plays back the answers incredibly fast. The project is the first of its kind in Europe and cost £1.2 million. It was made possible by funding and created by Interpretive designers Bright White.”
“The huge growth in speech recognition and natural language processing has meant we can be tolerant to the way people speak words, to accents and slang and it can stay relevant into the future.” explains Chris Walker, MD at Bright White, “We use a 3D stereoscopic image and people wear 3D glasses when viewing. What’s interesting is that the first people to go through this process are not prime ministers or movie stars but holocaust survivors which says something about the magnitude of what they have to say. Steven is such an inspirational character with great camaraderie and was keen to know what was going on. We filmed him for 20 hrs, he was a star and we really miss working with him.”
“It was exhausting to do at the time but the end result is fantastic.” says Steven, “it’s all very strange but so clever – It can tell when ‘wicked’ means evil or brilliant! I have even asked myself a question! My children and grandchildren have heard my stories but this way my great grandchildren can too. I will be talking to them when I am virtually 109!“
www.nationalholocaustcentre.net
Photo © Bright White Ltd