The Jewish Museum Frankfurt is the oldest independent Jewish museum in Germany. Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl opened it on 9 November 1988, the 50th anniversary of the November Pogrom, but its history extends further back. For 15 years, the museum has been researching the biographies of 13,000 Jewish people who were deported and murdered or committed suicide during the Nazi regime. The task was to make this data available to historians, all researchers, and family members of the now second and third generations searching for their roots. Additionally, visitors should be able to add to the biographies. They would also be encouraged to upload photos, correct errors, or get in touch if they know people who haven't been mentioned in the 'Shoah Memorial Frankfurt' yet. The aim was to create a platform that would serve education, historical research, and personal and collective remembrance.

Around 1930, the members of the two largest Jewish communities in Frankfurt am Main numbered around 30,000. Following the handover of power to the National Socialists in 1933, the regime increasingly subjected the Jewish community to disenfranchisement and professional and social discrimination, robbing them of their livelihoods and financial assets, terrorising, ghettoising, and ultimately deporting and murdering them. Only 600 of Frankfurt's persecuted men, women, and children survived the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. None of the dead has an actual grave. Today, Frankfurt offers a wide range of opportunities to engage with the Nazi period. The 'Gedenkstätte Neuer Börneplatz '(Börneplatz Memorial) recalls the names of people from or associated with Frankfurt, and the Shoah Memorial Frankfurt expands this memorial to include all biographical data and photographs that still exist and makes them freely – and internationally – accessible for all.

There is a Jewish tradition of leaving stones on graves; as signs of peoples' visit and their remembering of the dead. Our idea was to transfer this tradition into the digital world with 'digital stones' that become information carriers, giving access to a person's biography. From a distance, they illustrate the magnitude of the annihilation. If you zoom in, they represent individual fates. As additional information and pictures are added, the respective stone becomes denser. In their uniqueness, the stones lend a personalised, human touch to facts. Interested historians, the general public, and most descendants of the Jewish community, in particular, are scattered across the globe. For those who cannot come to Frankfurt, the emotional value of commemoration is vital. That is why 'Shoah Memorial Frankfurt' is more than a database offering a collaborative and interactive memorial wall – it creates new opportunities for healing, research and education.

A 15-year research project conducted by the Jewish Museum Frankfurt provided the data used. In the run-up to the development, all results were reviewed again and supplemented where possible. We used prototypes and real data to drive the development. This allowed us to test aspects such as display, performance and accessibility during the development phase. Technically, the application runs on React and Next.js. But rendering and behaviour of the many 'digital stones' was challenging as they should move smoothly on any device and adhere to certain accessibility standards. After testing the first prototype, we settled on WebGL with Three.js. The project development lasted over six months, with the platform being published on 8 November, commemorating the Nazi Pogroms. 'Shoah Memorial Frankfurt' could be seen as a culminating milestone for the research project, but it is just a beginning that will serve the next generations.

This work is not about volume. Rather, it is about every single piece of information that we managed to immortalise. These are testimonies of individual lives, of a community the Nazis almost eradicated. In Frankfurt alone, 13,000 of them were wiped out, along with much biographical information. Without a promotion campaign, more than 2,000 people worldwide visited the 'Shoah Memorial Frankfurt' in the first three months since its launch in November 2022. We register an organically growing interest and particularly long visiting times on the platform (6+ minutes per visit on average). And visitors use the research function intensively – with over 20,000 biographical details researched in the first three months. For the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, the platform is an investment in long-term remembrance and education work, and for descendants, it's a valuable source of information on their roots.