Israeli Achievement: “Eva.Stories” Wins Internet Oscar

More than 300 million people from 70 countries watched groundbreaking Holocaust commemoration

By Yossi Aloni | | Topics: Antisemitism, Holocaust

“Eva.Stories,” a digital commemoration project telling the true story of a Jewish girl in the Holocaust, has won the WEBBY Award (like winning an Oscar, but for digital content). Mati Kochavi and his daughter Maya initiated the project, which won the judges’ selection for the Best Story category for 2020, alongside the iconic Saturday Night Live satire program (which won the Audience’s Choice category).

“The people of Israel made Eva’s Story what it is by embracing it, loving it, and following it,” Mati and Maya Kochavi said after winning. “It was followed by hundreds of millions of viewers across the globe. Winning the Webby is significant in refocusing public attention on the life of Eva, a 13-year old girl who suffered the horrors of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp and was murdered because she was Jewish. That was the goal we had sought to achieve in creating Eva’s Story.”

The groundbreaking project has already won a number of important international awards. Among other things, Eva’s Story won the New York Festival (NYF) Advertising Award in five categories. It won two awards from the London International Awards and an International Award for advertising in London. It was nominated for dozens of other awards, and on the Commemoration Day for World War II Victory, the Russian Internet giant Yandex dedicated a musical playlist to the project.

“Eva’s Story” tells the true story of Eva Heyman, a Jewish girl from Hungary who was murdered in Auschwitz. It was created as a series of 24 Instagram stories, which were put online separately, documenting the life of an ordinary girl, in a way that Eva might have done, had there been social networks at that time. The story begins with Eva’s peaceful childhood in Hungary and ends at the entrance to the gas chambers. It has become the world’s most successful commemoration project, with over 300 million views from around the globe. The project received unprecedented media coverage in 70 countries, to which about a billion people were exposed.

Eva’s Instagram account gained 1.6 million followers in less than two weeks. The stories had 10 million interactions in one 12-hour period, and the entire project had about 200 million Google searches. Leaders, celebrities and international opinion leaders also promoted the project, including the White House, the Israeli Prime Minister, comedian Sarah Silverman, Gal Gadot and many more.

On the occasion of International Holocaust Day, “Eva.Stories” was in the spotlight. World leaders, including Israel’s President Reuben Rivlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German President Frank Walter Steinmeier and many others, wrote messages against antisemitism and promises to preserve the memory of the Holocaust, on Eva’s Instagram account.

The WEBBY Awards have been awarded for 24 years now and running by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a body comprised of around 1,000 industry experts and technology inventors.

Here is Eva’s full story:

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