How do we transform historical research into a story that can reach and engage public audiences, without losing complexity, accuracy, or ethical responsibility?

As part of Who Owns Memory? Democratic Participation in Digital Public History, our second workshop will focus on the practice of digital storytelling and public history on social media.

Led by Borbála Klacsmann, PhD, Hungarian Holocaust historian and creator of the public history project Holokauszttörténetek, the workshop will use her project as a case study to explore how historical research can move beyond academic spaces and become accessible public narrative.

Participants will work with practical questions at the heart of digital public history:

🔹 How can we build a compelling story from one or a small number of historical sources?

🔹 How do we identify and communicate with a target audience?

🔹 How can we make historical narratives engaging without sensationalising difficult histories?

🔹 What should we do when sources contain gaps or missing information?

🔹 How can social media become a meaningful space for communicating historical research?

The workshop will combine an introduction to Holokauszttörténetek with practical exercises in creating engaging, historically accurate and ethically responsible public history narratives.

📅 1 September 2026

🕕 18:00–20:00 EEST

💻 Online

Workshop Description

During this workshop, participants will familiarize with the Holokauszttörténetek project which started as a public history blog and grew into one of the most popular Hungarian Facebook pages focusing on history. After a short introductory presentation, using Holokauszttörténetek as a good practice, participants will have the chance to acquire and practice various skills such as creating an engaging public history post or narrative while maintaining ethical integrity and avoiding sensationalism, building on one or a couple of sources to frame a cohesive story, defining and reaching target audience, and addressing missing information in order to maintain historical accuracy. The workshop hopes to answer a number of questions about the usefulness of social media as a platform for public history, and the accessibility and impact of public history as a method of dissemination of research results.

Meet the facilitator

Borbála Klacsmann, PhD, is a Hungarian Holocaust historian whose areas of expertise include the microhistory of the Hungarian Holocaust, the dispossession of and restitution for Holocaust survivors. She had worked for the Holocaust Memorial Center, the Anne Frank House, and the Yad Vashem Archives. She completed her doctoral studies at the Department of History at the University of Szeged in 2021. Between 2022 and 2025, she was a Gerda Henkel fellow at the University College Dublin. From September 2025, she has been a Saul Kagan postdoctoral fellow at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. She is a founding member of Hungarian Holocaust Research Network, and the owner of the Facebook public history blog Holokauszttörténetek.