#uploading_holocaust - When Students Film at Auschwitz

Every year, thousands of young Israelis go on a special school class trip: the "Journey to Poland" takes them to former concentration camps and memorial sites and they record their experiences in videos on YouTube. #uploading_holocaust is the first documentary to be made entirely from YouTube material and shows how the memory of the Holocaust is changing in the digital age.

At a time when fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors who can report on their experiences survive, the younger generation wants to keep the collective trauma from being forgotten. What usually begins as a search for traces of family history is increasingly becoming a kind of common pilgrimage that allows the young Israelis to understand the loss and suffering of their ancestors. Videos have become an important instrument of remembrance: on their journey, the young people film every eyewitness, every gas chamber and every commemoration then produce their own version of the story, upload it to YouTube and share it on social networks. This German-Israeli co-production documents their experiences and intimate reflections as well as boisterous moments from the class trip through YouTube videos. The two Israeli directors Udi Nir and Sagi Bornstein combed the video platform using the search phrase "Journey to Poland" and put the film together from a wide range of sources. The directors also manage to take a disturbing look at this 4th generation of Israelis are dealing with the legacy of the Holocaust.