The Camp prisoners testimony

“…tell ye your children…” was the English name of the Swedish government’s large 1997 campaign about the Holocaust. The book has now been translated into 7 languages and 1.3 million copies have been printed. In words and pictures, an attempt is made to explain the inexplicable. How could genocide take place in the middle of Europe? As neighbors, what was our role?

At Kulturen in Lund, we have material evidence of the Holocaust. Thanks to one man’s courage and foresight, items and fragments were saved when the White Buses came at the end of the war with survivors of the concentration camps.

Zygmunt Lakocinski – a professor of the Polish language at Lund University saw what we know today – evidence must be secured. Besides saving memorabilia and personal items from being burned, testimonies of the survivors from the camps were recorded. Translations of the testimonies can now to be found at the Lund University library. These testimonies have been used as important evidence in court trials.

Kulturen in Lund has been entrusted to house Zygmunt Lakocinski’s material testimony.

Among the millions of items in our vast collection of cultural history, we have now chosen to bring forth these artifacts. We do so, because it is needed. Presently, in Sweden , racism has been on the rise. Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, homophobia are increasing. Have we not learned anything from history? We see what developed then! Don’t we see what is happening now?
Kulturen has on a few occasions before displayed these artifacts and two things resulted:

• survivors made contact and talked to us
• school classes have been inspired to talk about what is happening today.

Now we want to display “To Survive – Voices from Ravensbrück” in a web-exhibition. We want to make the material available and add the knowledge we have acquired along the way. We hope more than anything to start an ongoing discussion. On January 27, 2005 - the memorial day - we are going to show the items in a permanent studiemagasin. By doing this, we want to establish a discussion with the school groups that visit us. To let us learn
from each other.

/ Margareta Alin, Lund, September 2004

This web-exhibition is mainly made up of two parts. It begins with a couple of short background texts about how the artifacts came to be at Kulturen. The texts are illustrated with pictures that change automatically. Choose background text with the blue titles up to the left.

Move between backgrounds and categories by using the gray arrows (< and >) below to the left of the picture.

The pictures of the artifacts make up the largest part of the web-exhibition. These are organized in nine categories. You can choose a category by selecting a blue title to the left and browse through the pictures with the green and red arrows (< and >) at the bottom of the page. As the mouse moves over a picture, a text will appear with information about the object and may even provide further information about how to see a more detailed picture. The categories are also illustrated by quotations from the prisoners who were brought in the White Buses to Sweden . The quotations change automatically up to the right of the picture.

By moving the mouse over the question mark (?) at the bottom of the page, you can get help how to use the functions on every page.