“We wanted the guys to completely immerse themselves in the history of World War II and the Holocaust. We traveled with them to Poland so that they could see with their own eyes this camp: barracks, stoves, gas chambers. Not a single book and not a single movie can be compared with such living evidence, ”said VR-artist Denis Semenov.

The project combines history, personal experiences and the latest technology. Work began in September, when a group of nine high school students was assembled and the first acquaintance with drawing in virtual reality took place.

The first important milestone was an excursion to the Jewish Museum and the Center for Tolerance, which ended with watching the famous film Schindler's List. Schindler's surviving factory in Krakow was the first museum that the guys visited in Poland.

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“When I watched the film, I remembered a girl in a red coat, and I chose her for my project. The whole film is black and white, so it made a special impression, ”said Dima Kaderkaev.

Other guys relied more on the trip itself, in particular on the November morning when the bus brought them to Auschwitz-Birkenau - a museum created on the site of a concentration camp system near the city of Auschwitz (Auschwitz in German).

“In my project, I wanted to convey the horror and scale of what happened in Auschwitz. My work is an endless stream of names of those who died in a concentration camp. In the foreground is the star of David. For me, this is a sign of sadness and devotion to your origin, to who you really are - to the end. Lines are the words of those who survived the Holocaust, their letters and interviews, ”said Nata Makashvili.

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All 3D-drawings were made using the Tilt Brush tool, which the guys learned to use all fall. Moreover, the students themselves got into the video using the volumetric video technology (DepthKit, Azure Kinect DK), which also made 3D objects out of them.

“The real know-how of the project is a combination of virtual avatars of children and their drawings in one space,” said Denis Semenov and Phygitalism studio, which created the video itself. “For this, we used the Unity 3D programming program, transferred shooting and drawings to it, which we then modified using shaders.”

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The result was a video in which each object is closely related to the music that sounds in it. An unusual instrument on which the composition is performed is the theremin. Such instruments can be seen at concerts of Sting, Linkin Park and many others.

Theremin was invented by Leo Theremin back in the 1920s. To play the Theremin does not require physical contact with the instrument, the sound is extracted using an electromagnetic field: moving the hand closer to the Theremin vertical antenna, the performer changes the tone of the sound, and the volume changes to the horizontal.

For the Auschwitz Lessons project, theremin stood up for the great-grandson of the famous inventor Peter Termen, who acted not only as a performer, but also as a composer.

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A trip to Poland and other stages of work formed the basis of the documentary, which we will show at the end of the Auschwitz Lessons project.

“We live in the digital era, and new times require new expressive means. The Auschwitz Lessons is an experiment in which we wanted to show how history can live and come to life in the hearts and minds of young children through immersive art. Using VR animation and innovative methods of volumetric shooting, we, it seems to me, managed to say new words in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. To say them in a language that can attract other young children and inspire them to learn more about the history of the Holocaust and the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, ”noted the author of the idea, Kirill Karnovich-Valois.

“Auschwitz lessons” became part of a large project #Pobeda Victory launched by RT in honor of the approaching 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. Join us on YouTube, Facebook, Vkontakte, Twitter and Instagram.