Client:
Norwegian Red Cross
Dimh's services:
concept development, gamification, graphics, game development, serious games
The Norwegian Red Cross headquarters in Oslo is home to Den hvite bussen (The White Bus) experience center. The center is built around an original bus from the historic rescue operation in 1945, in which thousands of prisoners were rescued from Nazi camps. Visitors can take a virtual trip on the bus and access educational materials with historical and humanitarian roots.
One of the stories highlighted in the teaching activities is that of Wanda Heger, a young woman who was placed under house arrest in Germany with her family during World War II. There, they began resistance work by delivering food to prisoners in camps and at the same time smuggling out information about where the prisoners were located. The lists that were compiled were handed over to the Red Cross and became an important part of the rescue operation with the White Buses.
To bring the story to life for today's young school visitors, we created a 15-minute interactive experience where students, together with their teacher, explore a large collage via iPad, filled with important events from Wanda's life. Zoom in, discover details, and find Wanda herself. An interactive experience based on "Where's Waldo?", as well as an engaging and educational journey into one of the most important stories of our time.
The Red Cross compiled a comprehensive list of nine events from Wanda's life that were important for understanding her impact. Each event was divided into two to four smaller scenes and visualized in an interactive collage. Users can zoom in on different parts of the collage to get more information about the events.
An important part was to make Wanda's character recognizable in every scene. We recreated her image as best we could and made sure that Wanda wore a recognizable white dress in every scene. Wanda is initially hidden from the collage but appears when users zoom in, which creates a sense of curiosity among users to find out where else she might be hiding.
We also provided a illustrated map of the actual route taken by the white bus.
The Red Cross compiled a list of all routes taken during the operation with white buses, based on old diaries and reports. We went through all the cities and comments from bus drivers that were mentioned, found old German maps from the German archives online, and recreated where the buses drove to pick up prisoners from concentration camps and prisons.
The result was a visualization that hangs in the Den hvite bussen experience center in Oslo, linking the courage of the past with the understanding of the present.
