on Friday, 25 January, two days before Holocaust remembrance day, open the Historical museum the exhibition ”Speaking of memories – the Holocaust of the last witnesses”. The idea is to pay attention to those who survived the genocide and later fled to Sweden.
– To discuss and tell about the Holocaust is an extremely important part of both Sweden’s and Europe’s history, ” says Katherine Hauptman, museum curator at the Historical museum. We want to contribute to a deeper understanding of the survivors ‘ experiences, but also create a platform for discussions on the ever-important topics such as democracy, human rights and the avhumanisering that preceded the genocide.
Lizzie Oved Scheja (t.v.), director at Jewish culture in Sweden and Katherine Hauptman, museum curator at the Historical museum are jointly responsible for ”Speaking of memories – the holocaust of the last witnesses”. Photo: Adam Daver
the photographer Karl Gabors 29 portraits of survivors who came to Sweden after the second world war. The photographs are accompanied by their life stories, and a short message they want to pass on.
”Speaking of memories” also provides access to the american organization, the USC Shoah foundation’s digital video archive with of 55,000 testimonies from the Holocaust and other genocides.
Director Steven Spielberg founded the organization in 1993 after he created ”schindler’s list”, and it is the first time their extensive materials will be displayed in Sweden. Our computer is linked to the USC Shoah foundation’s archive so visitors can either sit at our internet computer station or link it up on our network to get access to the evidence, ” says Katherine Hauptman.
The american organization has also contributed an interactive installation where visitors can stand in front of a tv screen and ask questions directly to two of the folkmordens survivors. Also on display are authentic objects from the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, among other things, a prison from a Polish political refugee, and the subject from those who are held captive.
– You ask the is often: ”How was it possible to suffer through something so terrible?” Then answers many of the survivors of that small gestures of humanity was what kept them alive. One of the items that we show up, a small pillow in miniature, gave one of the prisoners to another. And also these objects is displayed for the first time in Sweden.
As a complement to the personal experiences show exhibit timeline, ”the Road to the Holocaust”. Tidsskedet begins in 1933, when Adolf Hitler, leader of NAZI party, is appointed chancellor in Germany, and ends with the United nations declaration on human rights adopted in 1948. In between is made, the impact of different types of events that culminate in the genocide of mainly jews, but also roma, poles, political prisoners, homosexuals, and people with funktionsvariationer.
”Speaking of memories – the Holocaust of the last witnesses” came into existence in 2015 when the department, the Jewish culture in Sweden, in cooperation with the Paideia college, arranged workshops and seminars with Förintelseöverlevande at the Historical museum.
Over the years formed a strong trust and a creative dialogue between us and the Historical museum. With us both there was a strong interest and a willingness to take the project a step further and invest in an exhibition which also has access to archive material, ” says Lizzie Oved Scheja, founder and director of the Jewish culture in Sweden.
the Initiative was so successful that we felt that we wanted to take it further. Not only that it would be a engångsgrej but something with a longer lifespan.
Jewish culture in Sweden contacted since the USC Shoah foundation and the state museum Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.
– There are two organizations with large archives of items and testimonials from survivors. We wanted to make available their material for a Swedish audience.
the Result was ”Speaking of memories”.
”Speaking of memories – the holocaust of the last witnesses” is a new exhibit at the Historical museum. Photo: Adam Daver
was born in Israel but despite the fact that her family is not itself experienced the Holocaust burns, she is strongly in order to spread knowledge and understanding of the genocide during the second world war.
” During my childhood in Israel, we spoke not about the Holocaust despite the fact that there were many survivors among us. There was a silence, she says, and continues:
Those who were young during the Holocaust is now old, and soon they will leave us. What do you do when those who survived no longer exist? How we encounter the holocaust deniers and historierevisionister when the survivors passed away? Then we who are alive have a greater responsibility to keep the memory and their experiences in life, so that this does not happen again, whether against jews or other folksgrupper.
She also stresses that the Holocaust is not a jewish concern, but rather as something that concerns all of us, and that lessons learned from the second world war should be the basis for how we judge the present.
– the Holocaust, the systematic and industrialised eradication of Europe’s jews is unique. But the Holocaust also has a universal validity through the lesson that can be drawn from this dark time of our own present day.
One of the objects displayed in the exhibition is a suitcase from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Photo: Adam The Sas Topolnicki
hope that the exhibition will contribute to greater awareness, not least among Swedish youth. In addition, she has a vision of it in the future to set up a permanent exhibition in Sweden on the Holocaust.
– To preserve the memory through a permanent exhibition or a Förintelsemuseum should be not only a jew, but an american concern. The exhibition ”Speaking of memories” is an important step in that direction.
She also has a personal hope that the visitors will get a glimpse of what she experienced during the years she worked with these issues.
When I met survivors, I have noticed that none of them shows any kind of hatred or revanschkänsla. On the contrary, they talk only about to go forward, to the rescue is to disseminate the lessons. I have taken to me, and I hope that visitors will do it. ”Speaking of memories” also bears testimony to the strength and viability. To people, in spite of unbearable memories can shape new lives and contribute constructively and creatively to build their own lives and the society we live in.
