Facts

Contact person:
Malin Thor Tureby
Financer:
  • Swedish Research Council
Responsible at MaU:
Malin Thor Tureby
Project members at MaU:
Affiliated:
  • Henry Greenspan – Emeritus at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor
  • Steven High – Professor of History at Oral History and Public History Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling Concordia University
  • Sharon Kangisser Cohen – Director of the Eli and Diana Zborowski Centre for the Study of the Aftermath of the Holocaust Yad Vashem
  • Wulf Kansteiner – Professor at School of Culture and History Aarhus University
  • Stephen Naron – Director of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies Yale University
  • Christine Schmidt Deputy – Director and Head of Research Wiener Library Birkbeck
Time frame:
01 January 2024 - 31 December 2026
Research subject:
  • History
  • Holcaust Studies
  • Oral History
  • Critical Heritage Studies
  • Public History

About the project

This project examines the role of Holocaust survivors and survivors of Nazi persecution as memory activists in the memorialization, commemoration and remembrance of genocides and human rights abuses. Even though a cadre of Holocaust historians have begun investigating the roles of survivors in memory processes, there is still a tendency within Holocaust studies and Memory studies to treat survivors as passive victims.

Therefore, this twopart project will explore the memory activism of survivors in Sweden and the memory of and in activism through the activities of survivor descendants. Furthermore, the project will develop existing oral history methods regarding shared authority through conversations with descendants of survivors. Although the project primarily focuses on Swedish survivors and Swedish memory culture, it also stretches beyond the borders of Sweden in order to map the networks formed by survivors after the Second World War.