The Holocaust Museum in Sweden and Holocaust Memorial Museums as Role Models

Last year marked the 75th anniversary since the end of the Second World War and the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. It has also been twenty years since the first international forum on the Holocaust was organised in Stockholm, which led to the instigation both of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and the Swedish authority Forum for Living History. Many survivors are today quite old and will soon not be able to tell about their experiences. At the same time, antisemitic tendencies and other forms of racism as well as a widespread dissemination of conspiracy theories and disinformation are growing stronger all over the world.

As a result, Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfvén has invited world leaders and organisations to a high-level summit in Malmö on 13 October to highlight remembrance of the Holocaust and the combatting of antisemitism in international cooperation. The ambition of the Government of Sweden is to strengthen the remembrance of the Holocaust, and it has therefore pledged to preserve and pass on the memory of the Holocaust by establishing a museum, which is set to open next year.

On the same day as the Forum, the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI) will host two internationally renowned specialists who will speak about important questions concerning the memory of the Holocaust, the establishment of the Holocaust Museum in Sweden, and globalised memory culture.

• Erika Aronowitsch, Forum for Living History in Stockholm: To Remember and Learn from the Holocaust.
• Ljiljana Radonić, Austrian Academy of Sciences: Holocaust Memorial Museums as Role Models for a Globalised Memory Culture.

The event will be moderated by Gerhard Baumgartner (DÖW).