The guardians of the Auschwitz Memorial understand the imperative of maintaining authenticity to immunize the Holocaust against doubt and denial. Few survivors remain eighty years after the liberation of the notorious concentration camp, where more than a million Jews met their death. And the further into the past the genocide fades, the greater the danger of repudiation.
But how do we preserve memory and distinguish truth from fiction in the age of AI?
Maciej Zemojcin, a virtual production and AI films specialist, believes that digital tools hold the key. With the support of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation and Memorial, he is using advanced reality capture technologies to create a certified 1:1 3D digital replica of the former concentration camp.
The project will be revealed publicly for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival on May 15.
Feature films have not been permitted on the grounds of the Auschwitz Memorial for some 40 years. Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg’s film about a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand mostly Polish–Jewish refugees from the Holocaust, was among those denied access.
Picture from Auschwitz, the 3D digital replica, will make the historical site available for feature film making, allowing film productions to license the 3D virtual version from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation. The fees will be used to further support the Memorial. Among the project’s supporters is Ryszard Horowitz, a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp and one of the youngest people included on the real Oskar Schindler’s list.
The idea is to both ensure an authentic record of the past and create a digital representation that will be open and available for the future.
“In the beginning it was only about movies but in unpredictable times a secure and authenticated digital copy [of the camp] is as precious as it gets,” says Wojtek Soczewica, Director General of Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation.
The toll that time takes on the physical evidence is not the only threat. Severe weather conditions, armed conflicts or AI-powered deep fakes can pose dangers too. And, as 3D digital replicas of physical spaces become more widespread, it is raising questions about who owns the rights to digital twins of physical places.
In the case of Auschwitz Birkenau Zemojcin has agreed to donate the rights to the Foundation and Memorial, ensuring that the guardians of this world heritage site maintain control of its digital replica.
Now that the 1:1 3D digital replica of Auschwitz I-Main Camp is finished. The next steps include doing the same for of all the interiors of Auschwitz as well as the exteriors and interiors of Auschwitz II-Birkenau, safeguarding the entire former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp area.
The Genesis of the Auschwitz Picture Project
The Auschwitz Memorial is visited by over two million people every year and remains a carefully preserved historical site. This is one of the reasons why filming at this physical location has not been possible for almost four decades.
At the same time the Memorial and Foundation realized that the site could not limit itself to physical tours and traditional means of educating people about the Holocaust. “We knew that if we decided not to enter the digital sphere others who have bad intentions would not hesitate to do so,” says Soczewica.
There are millions of pictures of Auschwitz on the Internet. Anyone with production skills could use to try and make a digital replica that could distort history. “AI opens many windows,” he says. “We are doing what is necessary to provide to the market and to the public a 100% accurate digital replica.”
Picture from Auschwitz was produced using lidar 3D scanning methods and drones, highlighting details barely visible to the naked eye, with every original brick and roof tile diligently documented.
The collected raw data will be reprocessed again in the future as emerging technologies evolve. It will also provide an accurate copy of the whole historical terrain and all post-camp infrastructure, thus securing Auschwitz evidence from any unforeseen circumstances in the future.
“What we are trying to do is find a technological way to preserve memory,” says Zemojcin.
The project was approved three years ago by the Memorial after Zemojcin produced a proof-of-concept. Producing the first phase of the project – the 1:1 3D imaging of the exterior of Camp 1 – proved challenging and took about ten times longer than expected. Auschwitz has roughly 2 million visitors a year and is open every day except for Christmas, New Year’s Day and Easter Sunday. The project had to get special permission to use drones since the site is a no-fly zone. During winter the early morning is often shrouded in fog and by the time it lifts, around 8 a.m., visitors start arriving. It is difficult to do accurate scanning if there is any movement in the frame – such as falling leaves – so filming in autumn proved to be issue. Zemojcin and a colleague did some of the filming on January 1 when the site was closed, and conditions were right.
So far, the project has collected 18,000 x 60 megapixel photographs, 1,300 lidar 3D scanning stations, 4.6 terrabytes of source data, 40 terrabytes of processed data and five hours of 360 degree video.
The project used a variety of cutting-edge methods:
- Photogrammetry, a method of approximating a three-dimensional (3D) structure using two dimensional images.
- A point cloud, a set of data points in a 3D coordinate system that each represents a single spatial measurement on an object’s surface and taken together, represent its entire external surface.
- Data collected by drone that establishes the positioning on Earth of the concentration camp barracks with an accuracy rate within two centimeters.
- Gaussian splatting, a process powered by an AI neural network, was used to render extremely high-quality images — using numerous scans of an object — that can then be viewed from any angle and explored in real time.
The plan is to eventually add the collected data to the blockchain.
“We have the opportunity to be at the forefront of a discussion about authentic digital IP, how to standardize the scanning of historical sites, and how to control, certify, and authenticate, says Zemojcin. “It is a non-regulated area. We really believe that the digital replica should belong to its owners. This is why we have donated our work and the copyrights to the Auschwitz Foundation.”
The film making industry can use the Auschwitz Picture to help accurately build images in a movie, as a virtual production for real time shooting, or in post-production, Zemojcin says.
The project received minimal funds from the European Commission and the Polish Film Institute for the first phase as well as other private funds. It is currently trying to raise €1.5 million to complete the 1:1 digital rendering of the entire former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp area.
Those interested in contributing to the project can contact the Foundation.
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