Susanne Siegert runs a Tiktok account on which she educates people about Nazi crimes. Her videos reach hundreds of thousands of people. Explaining the Holocaust on Tiktok in 90 seconds is possible, says the 32-year-old. In her videos, Siegert also deciphers which emojis or number codes hide right-wing, racist or anti-Semitic content. In an interview with ntv.de, Siegert describes how she finds the balance between the language of the platform and the seriousness of the topic.
ntv.de: With your Tiktok account no.culture of remembrance educate people about Nazi crimes. Isn’t teaching in schools enough?
Susanne Siegert: I didn’t open the account out of a desire to educate people. About four years ago I started to look into the Mühldorfer Hart subcamp. It was a subcamp in my hometown. The former camp site is about 20 kilometers from my parents’ house in Bavaria. I researched it out of personal interest. I was impressed by how much I was able to find out in the openly accessible archives. It was a shocking aha moment for me to read about this place of my childhood in the context of mass murder and extermination.
You then shared this aha moment on Instagram.
I didn’t really reach many people with this at first. At first I was skeptical about how the topic would fit with Tiktok. But then I just tried it out. My first video on Tiktok had several hundred thousand views. That motivated me to do more research into Nazi crimes.
Is additional educational work needed alongside school?
My channel cannot replace school lessons or a visit to a memorial site. I see my videos as a useful supplement to school lessons. In school, curricula and trips to memorial sites are strictly regulated and time-limited. Not every young person is ready to deal with the topic in exactly the given time period. Ideally, projects would be ones through which students can find out more and perhaps do their own research in their home towns. There is often no time for this in the curriculum. That is why additional offers from foundations and memorial sites are needed. And because people spend a lot of time on Tiktok, there should also be offers on the platform. I see an advantage in this with my videos. I can answer smaller, individual questions with my videos.
The AfD is also very active on Tiktok. In April 2024 there was a #ReclaimTiktok campaign. What do you think about that?
There are accounts that target the AfD, and there should be some. But it is just as important to set topics yourself. And not always just react to what the AfD does. I create my content independently of the AfD.
You have almost 200,000 followers. How do you manage to reach so many people?
People like that my content is low-threshold and at eye level. I don’t point fingers or accuse people of not knowing something. I take people along with me in my research and share my thoughts and feelings with them. There are a lot of lifestyle influencers on Tiktok, which is not me. But I still watch the way they present themselves or create their videos. That’s exactly why people like to follow me as a person.
What are you up to?
I notice this in the messages I receive. Some write to me to say that they thought of me when discussing certain topics and ask me to make a video about it. This has become a very valuable exchange. I get a lot of ideas from my community.
And how does Holocaust Education work on Tiktok?
I’m not making a video about the Auschwitz camp complex and explaining the many subcamps or what happened on the day of liberation. These topics are too big for that. I try to break down the big issues so that an overall picture emerges. For example, by talking about how concentration camp prisoners were fed. If a person reads that in an original Nazi document, that’s one thing. But it’s something completely different to show concretely how little bread there really was. That was the idea for a video in which I explain the 250 grams of bread. People can understand that even if they have little prior knowledge. I often hear the accusation: Holocaust education on Tiktok in 90 seconds, how is that supposed to work? That works very well. You have to play by the rules of the algorithm. But we all have to.
How can one do justice to the topic of the Holocaust in 90 seconds?
I consciously avoid tabloid content. I rarely use the classic images from liberated concentration camps that show piles of corpses. I prefer to tell the life stories of individuals. I also pay attention to a certain tone in my language. Tiktok is a platform known for spreading disinformation. This topic in particular runs the risk of being slandered or trivialized on Tiktok. That’s why I check my sources and mark them in my videos. That’s why I always display my sources in my videos. That way, users can reliably see and check my sources. As a rule, I always rely on the two-source principle.
Which sources do you use?
I work with original sources, for example from the online archive of the Arolsen Archivesthe collection of United States Holocaust Memorial Museums or the databases of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel. These are publicly accessible databases for original documents. In such documents, the Nazis planned and documented their crimes in detail, sometimes recording them. When I use documents from the perpetrators, I make sure not to use Nazi language, but to explain discriminatory terms. I also work with interviews with survivors to give the victims a voice too. And then I compare all of this with research.
You spoke with the Jewish survivor Renate Aris from Chemnitz. You posted videos on your account with the title “Coffee and cake with a Holocaust survivor”. Don’t you find that trivializing?
No. That’s the way young people speak. That’s why I now use emojis and slang terms. I understand that it may seem strange to some people. But I think that’s exactly why people watch my videos. I try to motivate people to engage with the topic. To do that, I have to speak a language that also resonates with them in everyday life.
Is it difficult to find a balance between respect for the topic and the rules of the algorithm?
I have to keep rebalancing that. I recently published a video explaining the word “asocial”. In the video I show a scene from trash TV in which a person repeats the term many times. Two years ago I might have thought about whether I wanted to show myself as a person who likes to watch such a format. But I’ve become braver. It’s important to me that my videos are authentic. That’s how I would tell my friends. In order to reach people, I have to follow the rules of the platform to some extent. But I always maintain respect for the topic.
Right-wing extremist symbols or slogans have also been commented on under your videos. Did you know about them before you started your project?
I knew some of the symbols. The 88 stands for the eighth letter of the alphabet, so it is a code for “Heil Hitler”. New symbols and slogans spread quickly online, especially in right-wing communities. People need to be made aware of this. In a video I explain the comment “Never lose your smile”, an allusion to the SS Death’s Head Division, which was also responsible for guarding the concentration camps and whose symbol was a grinning skull. I want to educate people with this.
How do you react to such comments?
I delete them because I don’t want to give right-wing ideas a platform. I like to discuss things with people who have questions and who are skeptical. Especially when I notice that the person is genuinely interested. But if I repeatedly notice profiles with inflammatory or insulting comments under my videos, I have no interest in exchanging views. I have also had comments that relativized the Holocaust. I have reported them.
What was that exactly?
For example, someone wrote that the Holocaust was a myth. I often get three-line responses to my ads telling me that the police cannot find the person behind the commenting profile. Then the case is dropped. That really frustrates me.
Do not be afraid?
No. I believe that the courage of these people is limited to the online space.
Rebecca Wegmann spoke with Susanne Siegert