3D digitization via digital photogrammetry of a concentration camp prisoner’s striped uniform donated to the HDEC by a survivor. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Davide Tanasi)
The Institute for Digital Exploration (IDEx) at the University of South Florida has assisted the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center (HDEC) in Dania Beach, Fla. by 3D scanning hundreds of artifacts and digitizing tens of thousands of documents for a brand new ‘Interactive Learning Center’ smart table experience.
The grand opening of HDEC’s Interactive Learning Centers a few weeks ago is the culmination of an endeavor that began in 2021.
After seeing the work that IDEx did for the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, HDEC’s president Rositta Kenigsberg reached out to Dr. Davide Tanasi, director of IDEx and professor in the Department of History, to establish a collaboration.
“Over the past four decades, the HDEC had amassed an extensive Holocaust archival collection of thousands of documents, artifacts, and photographs,” Kenigsberg said. “72 percent of our South Florida Holocaust survivors are no longer with us. Thus digitizing, preserving, and perpetuating their ‘precious archival legacy’ and ensuring digital accessibility to these archives, for present and future generations to study and research, onsite and online worldwide, has always been a foremost priority for us.”
The work to produce the digital assets for the interactive tables lasted five months, with half done on site at the HDEC and the rest done at IDEx, Tanasi explained.
Tanasi said IDEx digitized and digitally curated 1,000 archival items belonging to the private collection of Dr. Martin Brody and of the HDEC collection itself.
In addition, IDEx 3D digitized over 100 artifacts from the museum collection, including a Sherman Tank used to liberate the camp of Dachau and a railcar used to transport Jewish prisoners from the Warsaw ghetto to Auschwitz.
IDEx team member 3D digitizing via portable structure light 3D scanning a Talmud book
from the 1940s. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Davide Tanasi)
IDEx staff member 3D digitizing via terrestrial laser-scanning the American M-4A3E8
Sherman Tank with the markings of the 20th Armored Division, 9th Tank Battalion, Bravo
Company, 1st Platoon, and 4th Vehicle. These were the type of tanks that participated
in the liberation of Dachau. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Davide Tanasi)
“We are extremely fortunate to be collaborating with Dr. Davide Tanasi, a noted skilled and gifted ‘specialist in the application of scientific techniques and digital methods for the documentation and global dissemination of historical material.’ We wish to take this opportunity to laud and commend [him] and his devoted ‘A Team,’ for making this project a priority, as well as shepherding it to completion,” Kenigsberg said.
Tanasi said the completion of this extensive project was not without challenges.
“We faced a good number of challenges that I would distinguish as technical, emotional and ethical challenges,” he said. “Technical challenges were represented, in certain instances by working on very fragile and perishable unique documents and artifacts that had to be handled with extreme care to be 2D or 3D digitized. To 3D digitize the tank and railcar poses issues related to their great size and high number of details. For that, we used an electric scissor lift that we moved all around the vehicles while performing the digitization via terrestrial laser scanning and digital photogrammetry.”
Working among the artifacts and documents was also something Tanasi and his team had to mentally prepare for.
“Baby shoes and baby clothes from the concentration camps, prisoners’ striped uniforms stained with blood and other similar objects brought back by the survivors and unseen photographs depicting the horrors of the Holocaust required my team and I to stay committed, without giving up to desperation and sadness, reminding to ourselves that what we were doing was important to educate the general public about the Holocaust,” he said.
Additional IDEx members who worked on the project included: Lisa Diaz (IDEx assistant director), Lisa Shorts (PhD student and IDEx lab manager), Sarah Hassam (MA student and IDEx project manager) and Paolino Trapani (IDEx research associate).
Tanasi explained that the museum’s smart tables present stories per subject, such as survivors, resistance, liberators, children, antisemitic propaganda and so on.
“Each story is told using an assemblage of the digitized documents and 3D models that we produced. Part of our work was also analyzing the materials that we worked on in order to find connections useful to tell those stories using digital storytelling. So basically, we generated all the contents for the smart table,” he said.
“To work for the community and with the community is part of IDEx's mission. In the specific case of our work with Holocaust museums, we feel a further obligation to do whatever we can to play our part in educating the global public about the Holocaust,” he said.
Visitors of the HDEC’s Interactive Learning Center engaging in touch interaction and
experiencing stories from the Holocaust through the digital assets produced by IDEx.
(Photo courtesy of Dr. Davide Tanasi)
Items 2D and 3D digitized by IDEx were employed to present stories from the Holocaust
on the interactive smart tables. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Davide Tanasi)
In January 2024 the IDEx team is scheduled to return to the HDEC for the second step of the collaboration which will last for about 6-8 months to conduct the 2D and 3D digitization and digital curation of the entire archival and artifact collection of the center.
Tanasi also indicated that the team has submitted a federal grant with the HDEC to secure extra funds and is aiming to publish an article regarding its work with the two Holocaust museums.
Learn more about IDEx and its current research projects.