Witnessing for the future. Holocaust, Sweden and Forgotten Early Testimonies

The purpose of the project “Witnessing for the future” is twofold: first, to gather previously unknown, unused and neglected Swedish sources on the Holocaust and the Genocide of the Roma, and second, to investigate the nature and influence of the Swedish and transnational “ecologies” in which the witnessing took place.

We will utilise Hannah Pollin-Galay’s (2018) concept of “ecology of witnessing”, according to which survivors do not face the task of remembering alone but incorporate the conversations and textual conventions around them. The research will be carried out in three case studies.

Simo Muir investigates the Yiddish language literary sources that discuss the Holocaust, and the survivors encounter with Sweden, written in Sweden and beyond.

Andrej Kotljarchuk investigates early testimonies of Roma genocide survivors in Sweden, and Karin Kvist Geverts will explore if, how and when these minority narratives surfaced and how they were acknowledged, ignored, misunderstood in the public debate.

The interlinked stories of the Jewish and Roma survivors are at the forefront of international research, and the project will create new knowledge on the Holocaust and the Genocide of the Roma as a Swedish and transnational event.

Our collected records will be offered as a donation to the Swedish Holocaust Museum in order for these testimonies to enable “Witnessing for the future”.