Flashbacks: New views in games, books, podcasts

In a world showing signs of unravelling in new ways (as well as in ways that look eerily familiar), we are still unpacking some of what occurred in the horrific second world war (September 1, 1939 - September 2, 1945).

- Sukanya Datta

Testimonies, cautionary tales and re-imagings take the form of podcasts, video-games, archives and books. “Although the era of the postwar world order has ended, the events that led up to WW2 are still worth studying, because they seem to echo the state of the world today in so many ways,” says culture writer K Narayanan.

New explorations of the war help us reexamine what could have been, and what could be, in our present and near-future, he adds.

Here is a look at five such explorations.

Attentat 1942

How far would you go, to further the cause of freedom? In this videogame inspired by real events, a young man in the present day is trying to figure out exactly why his grandfather, Jindrich Jelinek, was arrested by the Gestapo in the Nazi-occupied Czech region, during the war.

Was he really involved in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking SS officer considered one of the architects of the Nazi death camps?

As part of his quest, the young man can speak to Jelinek’s wife Ludmila Jelinkova, and to other survivors of the Holocaust (a set of video interviews recreate elements of real-life accounts). He can also refer to fictionalised excerpts from Jelinek’s encrypted journal, and archival footage of historical events.

The game is intricate and challenging. Details matter. The player must choose the right questions to pose to Holocaust survivors, for instance, in order to access the video interviews. Use the wrong approach and the survivors may simply shut the door in his face.

Created by the Prague-based independent studio Charles Games, Attentat 1942 was developed in 2017, in association with researchers from Charles University and the Czech Academy of Science's Institute for Contemporary History, along with the Czech Republic's ministry of culture.