the digital commemoration project that recounts the true story of a Jewish girl during the Holocaust won Webby award in the Best Use of Stories category.
By ALAN ROSENBAUMEva.Stories, the award-winning Holocaust Instagram project (photo credit: screenshot)Eva.Stories, the digital commemoration project that recounts the true story of a Jewish girl during the Holocaust, has won the Webby Award, considered the Oscar of digital content. The Instagram project, which was conceived by entrepreneur Mati Kochavi and his daughter, Maya, came in first as the judges’ choice in the Best Use of Stories category for 2020, alongside the iconic satire show Saturday Night Live, which won the audience’s choice award.“The people of Israel made Eva.Stories what it is by embracing it, loving it, and following it,” said Mati and Maya Kochavi after the award was announced. “Winning the Webby is significant in refocusing public attention on the life of Eva, a 13-year old girl who suffered the horrors of Auschwitz, because she was Jewish. That was the goal we had sought to achieve in creating Eva’s Story.”
Mati Kochavi (Courtesy)Eva.Stories recounts the true story of Eva Heyman, a Jewish girl from Hungary, who was murdered in Auschwitz. It was constructed as a series of 220 Instagram stories that rolled out in 48 hours, documenting the life of an ordinary girl, as if social networks had existed in those years. The story starts with Eva’s calm and happy-go-lucky childhood in Hungary and ends with her death in the Nazi gas chambers in Auschwitz. Eva.Stories became the most successful commemoration project in the world, with over 300 million views worldwide. Debby Group, the Israeli public relations agency, led the public relations in Israel and around the world for this project.In less than two weeks since it was posted, Eva’s Instagram account amassed 1.6 million followers. The stories resulted in 10 million interactions within 12 hours and 200 million searches on Google. Global leaders, celebrities and opinion leaders helped promote the project, including the White House, Israel’s Prime Minister, American stand-up comedian Sarah Silverman, actress Gal Gadot, and many others.
