Hamburg, January 22, 2026 - Centropa is proud to announce the relaunch of the MemoryLanes App, now expanded to include a wealth of new content from the iMemory project. This major update transforms the app into a comprehensive, youth-driven educational platform that brings Jewish history, culture, and memory to life through powerful storytelling and cutting-edge digital tools. The app is a valuable resource for commemorating the Holocaust, providing accessible and engaging materials to support remembrance.
Updated App built on the MemoryLanes Project
The original MemoryLanes project reimagined how young people can explore and commemorate Jewish life in Germany, Poland, and Serbia. Over two years, 86 teenagers researched Jewish biographies from their hometowns and Centropa’s digital archive, then used artistic methods to create deeply personal remembrance projects. These works, centered on individuals from Kielce, Belgrade, Berlin, and Mannheim, bring stories of Jewish life back into the local landscapes where they unfolded, reshaping familiar environments into new sites of memory.
New in the App: The iMemory Project
The relaunch introduces an extensive set of materials from iMemory, Centropa’s newest transnational educational initiative. Launched to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, iMemory brought together 72 young people from Germany, Poland, Serbia, Croatia, and Ukraine to explore Jewish history and its relevance today. Through youth exchanges, creative projects, and innovative educational formats, iMemory tackles contemporary challenges, from antisemitism and prejudice to questions of cultural remembrance, while fostering a more inclusive and diverse Europe.
What’s New in the Updated MemoryLanes App
The relaunch brings a range of new features and youth-generated content, including:
- Dozens of new youth projects based on Centropa biographies, highlighting sites of Jewish life in students’ hometowns as new places of remembrance.
- Creative, youth-made storytelling formats designed specifically for young audiences:
- Films, comics, AR guides, and songs introducing Centropa biographies and the places connected to them.
- New tandem interviews in which iMemory participants interview one another about some of the most significant questions around memory, identity, and responsibility.
- Exclusive previews of oral history interviews conducted by participants with Holocaust survivors and their families (full interviews will be released on the Centropa website in January 2025 around International Holocaust Remembrance day).
- Expanded 3D and AR experiences, allowing students to:
- Explore Centropa biographies through 3D art, such as for example the story of Tosia Silberring (Poland) and Ronia Finkelstein (Ukraine).
- Bring AR reconstructions such as for example synagogues directly into their classrooms
- Immerse themselves in detailed 3D installations that make history tangible.
A Dynamic, Youth-Driven Resource for Today’s Classrooms
With this relaunch, the MemoryLanes App becomes a richer, more interactive educational space, one that reflects the voices, questions, and creativity of young people across Europe. Designed for teachers and students alike, the updated app makes Jewish history accessible in new ways, sparking reflection on the past while engaging with the present.
For more information about the app relaunch, MemoryLanes, iMemory, or Centropa’s educational programs, please visit our website:
https://www.centropa.org/en/project/imemory/home
or contact our Deputy Director Ninja Stehr: stehr [at] centropa.org (stehr[at]centropa[dot]org)
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About iMemory
iMemory is a transnational educational project funded by the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” (EVZ) and the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF). It builds on the foundations of the MemoryLanes project, with a renewed focus on the Jewish presence in Europe. Launched to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the project invites young people from Germany, Poland, Serbia, Croatia, and Ukraine to explore and reflect on Jewish history and its relevance today. Through innovative teaching formats, youth exchanges, and creative outputs, iMemory addresses current issues such as antisemitism, prejudice, and cultural remembrance, while fostering a more inclusive and diverse Europe.
The project was a collaborative effort between Centropa, the Galicia Jewish Museum (Krakow), the Centre for Education Policy (Belgrade), HERMES (Croatia), Gedankendach (Ukraine) and berlinHistory,
About Centropa:
Centropa was founded in 2000 as a non-profit historical institute. 1,200 elderly Jews in Central and Eastern Europe shared their life stories and family photos with us. Through our online database, short multimedia films, travelling exhibitions, student competitions, training seminars for teachers as well as youth encounters, we connect Europeans to 20th century European-Jewish history and with each other.
