JTA — Seated at a desk, the girl smiles, then looks down and begins to write in a notebook. It’s unmistakably Anne Frank. But wait — there is only one known film of Anne and her sister Margot. And this is not it.

The new 23-second clip of perhaps the world’s best-known victim of the Holocaust was created using artificial intelligence, part of an educational campaign by the World Jewish Congress.

“It is so incredible that they can animate these photos,” writes the daughter of a Holocaust survivor under the post, which since its release in June 2025 has garnered nearly 800 comments, 16,000 likes, hearts, and hugs, and 2,000 shares.

“For decades and decades, we’ve seen her photos. Say what you will about AI, it stirs me to see her in ‘real life,’” wrote another commenter, prompting a response: “The same for me, brings her more vividly alive and poignant.”

“Disgusting ai,” retorted another user. “Anne Frank deserves better.”

The comments illustrate a divide on the use of AI for Holocaust remembrance and education. Some employ these tools respectfully and responsibly, creating new means to share the stories of victims or of the rapidly diminishing number of living witnesses. At the same time, an ever-growing supply of fake Holocaust posts are designed to generate clicks for their mostly anonymous creators — and run the risk of undercutting trust in Holocaust content at a time when denial is surging.

That risk has some concerned that even well-intentioned Holocaust AI efforts, such as the WJC’s, could end up furthering mistrust in Holocaust documentation and should be avoided.

Now, educational and memorial establishments increasingly are asking: Does AI help preserve memory, or does it contribute to Holocaust distortion and denial? Does it mobilize the public to learn from the past or does it contribute to a world where people cannot know what is true anymore? Does it humanize dry facts and figures, or does it erase something at the heart of what makes us all human?

The answers to all are “yes,” said Yfat Barak-Cheney, executive director of the WJC’s Institute of Technology and Human Rights, who last month held an invitation-only “fireside chat” with Meta’s public policy director, Ben Good, discussing some of those very questions. According to the WJC, Good assured the audience gathered at New York’s Yeshiva University that the parent company of Facebook and Instagram is committed to fighting antisemitism on its platform, including amid the rise of AI-generated content.

While AI opens many doors, it also “is a convenient tool for Holocaust distortion,” Barak-Cheney told JTA before the event. She acknowledged that “there’s a huge ethical question here” on how far to go with AI, but added that there is no possibility of avoiding the increasingly ubiquitous tool — which she said has enormous potential for the field of Holocaust remembrance.

“If we’re not going to use any of these tools, we’re going to remain way behind,” she said.

The boundaries were tested recently in the creation of a project called “Tell Me, Inge…” by partners Meta, StoryFile, the Claims Conference, and UNESCO.

In the project, German survivor Inge Auerbacher answers questions for a hologram interview that will outlive her. Drawing from Auerbacher’s oral history, the project uses AI to find the most appropriate answers for a viewer’s questions. Viewers can interact with a virtual image of Auerbacher using a headset on a desktop or mobile device.

While the answers are generated in part by AI,........

© The Times of Israel