Susanne Siegert is not your average influencer: instead of make-up tutorials, she provides Holocaust education. star-Podcast ”The Boss” she talks about the ups and downs of this responsibility
Holocaust education in the midst of dance and get-ready-with-me videos? Sounds strange? But it works! Susanne Siegert is proof of this with almost 200,000 followers on her TikTok channel ”keine.erinnerungskultur”. She is considered one of the most widely-reaching mediators of the historical memory of the Holocast. And she achieves what hardly anyone has done before her: serious historical education in 90 seconds on TikTok.
Why does this work so well? She meets young people at eye level, where they are online, Susanne Siegert tells host Simone Menne in the new episode of star-Podcast “Die Boss”. ”Young people are very interested in the topic of Nazi crimes and ask a lot of questions that show that they are reflecting on their own role and the role of their families. But perhaps these questions cannot be answered in the corset of school lessons, but need other formats.”
Siegert is of the opinion that TikTok should generally be used more sensibly. Especially by politicians. ”This platform has never been taken seriously for years.” A mistake. In an interview with Simone Menne, she explains why she finds the content of Söder, Scholz & Co. ”cheeky” and what the AfD is doing right on TikTok.
”We always make it easy for ourselves as members of the perpetrator nation.”
What her videos prove is that supposedly difficult topics can be prepared for the platform – in her case it is “commemorative work”. Susanne Siegert deliberately speaks of “commemorative work” and not of “culture of remembrance”. She thinks that the term “culture of remembrance” is based heavily on survivors and contemporary witnesses. But there are fewer and fewer of them.
“We have to do this work now and we can no longer – to put it bluntly – pass it on to survivors, but we have to take action ourselves.” As members of the perpetrator nation, we have always made it easy for ourselves when it comes to commemoration and have placed a great deal of burden on the survivors, says Susanne Siegert.
About her Holocaust education work: ”You never stop learning.”
A lot of heart and soul goes into her channel. Sometimes she spends weeks following the individual stories and the intensive research involved. However, she does all the work from home, on her laptop, and in doing so proves that anyone can do it! She herself is not a historian: “I didn’t study it. I’m just a person from civil society who started to get involved with it of my own accord.” In the interview, she reveals how she manages this responsible work, “on the side,” in addition to her full-time job, how she has dealt with hate comments – and even a shitstorm – and how much she is still learning.
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Source: Stern
