Quote from: James J SkachI can see if you wanted to write a book or script that explored this topic so you could work through your feelings on the topic. (...) But what is gained by having people sit around and do these things together?

A good question. I'm not sure I have a quick and easy answer.

I believe it can be easier for people to try to handle the subject matter in a group than alone. Sitting down alone to write or read about the topic isn't for everyone.

Having people around you to help you think, understand your own reactions, relate your experiences to real/everyday life can help make the experience into something you can learn from, I hope.

Quote from: James J SkachIs there a desire to relive this kind of horror in small groups?

Y'know one of the first phrases that comes to my mind about the Holocaust?  "I can't imagine."

Literally.  I cannot imagine that.  I don't have the mental tools to even begin to get my mind wrapped around it.

I can imagine the ovens, I can imagine the barbed wire, I can imagine the starvation and the torture and the dying.  But I cannot imagine what it must have felt like to walk and breathe and struggle in that hell made by human hands.  I ....

Truth be told, I'm not sure I want to be able to imagine this.  Speaking as just a scrap of human flesh trying to live my life and not succumb to despair, I'm not sure I want to understand those depths more fully.  I do not know that I have the strength to go there, and come back again.

But for people stronger than me, more dedicated than I dare to be to the act of memory and the embrace of tragedy, I think that coming together and being part of these stories in a respectful and powerful way could be a potent bridge to the past.

Quote from: -E.if you're going to be appropriately serious about this I'd cite more respectable sources... and lots of them.

Oh, certainly; Wikipedia was just for purposes of cut'n'paste right now.

Between my keyboard and the computer screen I have "Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising" by Israel Gutman.

Behind me on the shelf are approx 20 books, in addition to several leaflets. They include Staub's "The Roots of Evil", Perechodnik's "Am I a Murderer?", "In the beginning was the Ghetto", a book about Anne Frank, two books by Chaim Potok and a few Norwegian autobiographies.

Downstairs in the reading room are several books about the Lodz and Warsaw ghettoes.

So I'm doing research, and will include a bibliography. (I won't cite references along the way, as that will break up the flow of the text).

Quote from: Matthijs HolterA good question. I'm not sure I have a quick and easy answer.

I believe it can be easier for people to try to handle the subject matter in a group than alone. Sitting down alone to write or read about the topic isn't for everyone.

Having people around you to help you think, understand your own reactions, relate your experiences to real/everyday life can help make the experience into something you can learn from, I hope.

Then I would back away from anything that makes this appear as a leisure activity. I don't know what that would do to your funding, but I'd run away from it as fast as I could.

I'd be willing to bet there are plenty of established ways to use this approach, this "interactive storytelling," to provide an educational basis for understanding the horror - particularly with, say, high school kids.

But to look at this as something to be published for the general public goes beyond a kind of "tipping point" for me. Whether it's for profit or not, it carries with it this kind of commericalized trivializing that you're just not going to get away from.

At least, I'd bet that's how it would get taken here in the States.  I can't speak for the entire United States, but that's just my sense of it. It might be different in Europe. I know my German-Immigrant In-Laws see many things very differently from me, including the Holocaust and the War.

Quote from: TonyLBBut for people stronger than me, more dedicated than I dare to be to the act of memory and the embrace of tragedy, I think that coming together and being part of these stories in a respectful and powerful way could be a potent bridge to the past.

Okay, Tony for me personally, this is where it gets all kind of dodgy. Maybe it's gaming as opposed to other media, but this strikes me as bit...*shrug* I'll get back to you.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: TonyLBY'know one of the first phrases that comes to my mind about the Holocaust?  "I can't imagine."

Literally.  I cannot imagine that.  I don't have the mental tools to even begin to get my mind wrapped around it.

I can imagine the ovens, I can imagine the barbed wire, I can imagine the starvation and the torture and the dying.  But I cannot imagine what it must have felt like to walk and breathe and struggle in that hell made by human hands.  I ....

Truth be told, I'm not sure I want to be able to imagine this.  Speaking as just a scrap of human flesh trying to live my life and not succumb to despair, I'm not sure I want to understand those depths more fully.  I do not know that I have the strength to go there, and come back again.

But for people stronger than me, more dedicated than I dare to be to the act of memory and the embrace of tragedy, I think that coming together and being part of these stories in a respectful and powerful way could be a potent bridge to the past.

I forget the name of the book and the author (jesus my memory is getting bad), but I seem to recall his name was Victor?

Go. Read. But why on god's green earth would you have to get together with others to do this?  It seems that something this deeply horrifying is something to tackle yourself, and then maybe, maybe in an educational or group setting to discuss.  But to make it some kind of ruled interaction? I don't know...

This whole thing is revolting and heartbreaking all at once. The idea that it gets' compared to Maus is bullshit. Spiegelman was a Jew born in 1948. When his older brother was a toddler, he was poisoned by his aunt to avoid being taken by nazis while living in the Warsaw ghetto. Spiegelman never got over a sibling rivalry with a brother he never knew. To put it mildly, he had a personal stake in writing about the holocaust. What is your reason?

Obviously nobody is going to stop you from writing anything you like, but why do you think it's a good idea? Who is the person being educated here, and *how* are they being educated?

The involvement of the notoriously anti-Jewish Norwegian government is especially suspect. Is this just another leftist "See how thoughtful and humanist we are" type deal?

Has Yad Vashem or the Simon Wiesenthal Center been contacted? Senter mot antisemittisme?

Quote from: Abyssal MawThe involvement of the notoriously anti-Jewish Norwegian government is especially suspect.

Ahem. Labeling the Norwegian government as "notoriously anti-Jewish" is ridiculous. Going for "notoriously anti-Israeli" would be far-fetched as well, given Norway's historical support for the country*, but may be what you're aiming at. You're probably thinking of them recognizing Mahmoud Abbas' (failed) coalition-government with Hamas? Or the Minister of Finance giving support for a boycott of Israeli goods? Conflating Israel as a political entity with Jews in general has always struck me as somewhat dubious. But I shouldn't sidetrack further.

*A support no less strong in the Labour party, which is now part of the coalition in power.[/SIZE]

Quote from: Abyssal MawSpiegelman was a Jew born in 1948.

I don't want to restrict the Holocaust to being of interest only to people with the right credentials.  I don't want only Jews who were personally impacted to write about it or read about it or think about it.  I don't want the memory of this to fade into history as the last effected people die off one by one.  I want it remembered, always.  I want it understood as a human tragedy, not merely a Jewish one.

Is it so hard to understand that by insisting on this as a private tragedy you risk making it less than it is?

Quote from: Abyssal MawHas Yad Vashem or the Simon Wiesenthal Center been contacted? Senter mot antisemittisme?

Contacted? For what reason AM.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: JimBobOzNo Jew would ever write this thing, any more than a woman would write one about rape victims. I think that tells you something.

This, I think, is the heart of the matter.

!i!

Now that I see were this is going, I urge everyone to make his intellectual and emotional explorations of the shoah in reviewed or supervised media.

So that you can engage or indulge in the discussion that has sprung up about the particular artistic entry.

I cannot see any merit in using Roleplaying as a medium for that. Reading a book, visiting a museum, and the public debate surrounding it will yield better results that are more profound for your personal development.

Blatantly said, if a Spielberg movie doesn´t deliver, and your only answer is RPGs, then youre media use habits are sorely fucked up.

That all said: I can see great and real art coming from this. Like the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. School kids are using it as a playground, totally oblivious to the place. Or tourists taking pictures with themselves in front of it. When you watch that from the outside, it´s a crass statement. And I, as an observer are also part of it, if seen by another person.
So, to make real art out of it, please make some youtube videos of those college kids who play your game. This will be a grandiose artistic statement and snapshot of human nature and the culture or remembrance.

While I'm not a big fan of psychological role-playing (and this is certainly more that than a RPG, although with little to no therapeutical value), I would like to know a little more from Matthijs about the topics we haven't addressed here, i.e. the parts where it's not about the concentration camps.

What are the other parts about? How do your players experience the nature of passivity?

I wouldn't be interested in playing something like that, being rather conservative when it comes to what I consider 'art', but I'd like to know about the techniques involved. Matthijs?

Everyone, thanks for your replies so far. I'm going to take a break and sleep on this, and hopefully be back with more answers to the different questions tomorrow.

I am one of the playtesters of this game. I found it to be an engaging and emotionally challenging experience. It taught me a lot about myself, and also something about history.

The beta version of the game that I played was divided into different episodes. We were four players, and we had different characters to play for each episode. I was the gamemaster of one of the episodes, and I also played a jewish woman being forced across the german/polish border by soldiers, a relative of hers living in safety, receiving letters about her plight and discussing what to to, and a German SS officer during the Kristallnacht. The episodes were rather strictly structured by the text of the game. Game mechanics like stats and dice-rolling were totally absent, the focus being on immersing in the characters and/or the situations.

The game really hit me in the gut. I certainly did not find it to be trivialising, or "fun" in a narrow sense of the word.

I find it hard to take offense at Matthijs for not having personally lived through the Holocaust. On the contrary, I think it is important that those of us who are too young to remember it still makes an effort to learn about it and pass history on. We are the ones who'll have to teach our children and grandchildren. We sould not forget.

(I have also participated in the larp "1942" mentioned earlier in this thread. Incidentally, I played a jew, a norwegian jewish refugee on the run from the nazis. I spent four days hiding in an attic, hiding from the German soldiers and dreaming about running off to Palestine with my fiancee. No-one that participated in this game found it to be light-hearted.)

Quote from: SettembriniI cannot see any merit in using Roleplaying as a medium for that. Reading a book, visiting a museum, and the public debate surrounding it will yield better results that are more profound for your personal development.

Why?

I am not saying that you are wrong, but you are not presenting any arguments for your point of view here.

I have read books and watched films about the holocaust. Playing these games is not horsing around with what you've read in books. It is neither trivializing nor disrespectful. It is grappling with history at a direct and personal level. I hope lots of college kids will play Kristallnacht, perhaps even at school. I think it will be a very effective tool of education.

In addition to reading books, of course.