Carnegie Mellon University | Virtual Reality Production

Journey Through the Camps

Journey Through the Camps

Journey Through the Camps is a VR experience that takes users through the spaces of the Holocaust, giving them the chance to see these sites in context, hear survivor testimony, and understand the history in ways that film and books cannot provide. Using computer animation recreated from reference materials such as photographs and archival footage, our team built an experience that brings students into the history much as students who travel to Europe do when they tour the camps in person.

I served as creative director on this project, leading story development and shaping how the medium of VR could carry the weight of this history responsibly.

Story Development

We began with research into the Holocaust as both historical record and story genre. We watched films including The Pianist, Schindler's List, A Film Unfinished, and Son of Saul, and read survivor accounts from Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and memoirs such as Rena's Promise. The research deepened during the Poland trip, where Classrooms Without Borders provided tour guides, research materials, and the testimony of survivor Howard Chandler, whose presence gave the journey its educational core.

We settled on a structure that brings the user through the significant spaces of the camps, bearing witness to survivors' memories in each one. The result is a journey where the user sees and feels what it was like to move through these spaces:

  • Train | Arrival, Confusion

  • Shower Room | Fear, Uncertainty

  • Barracks | Survival, Suffering

  • Crematorium | Processing Loss, Mourning

  • Train Scene

  • Shower Room

  • Crematorium

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Journey with Howard Chandler