Switzerland Launching Holocaust Remembrance App

By Toby Axelrod March 9, 2017

BERLIN (JTA) — A new app to teach youth about the Holocaust will be a centerpiece of Switzerland’s chairmanship of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Switzerland took over the rotating chairmanship of the 31-member inter-governmental group on March 7 from Romania.

The app, called Fliehen vor dem Holocaust, or Escaping the Holocaust, allows users to learn about the fate of four individuals using multimedia tools.

Educators must take on “the challenge of virtual reality” so youth will grasp that “we are speaking about people,” not merely about numbers, Benno Bättig, secretary-general of Switzerland’s Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, said in a ceremony at the Swiss embassy in Berlin.

Founded in 1998, the alliance aims to unite political and social leaders behind the need for Holocaust education, remembrance and research.

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