Group of Holocaust Survivors in Göteborg
Within the Jewish Community of Gothenburg a number of members are survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. Some of them are actively informing on the Holocaust through telling schoolchildren and young students about their own experience during the second world war. They have been doing this for several years and they are part of a larger group of survivors whose members showing interest and active support are encouraging this outreachactivity.
The larger group has made it a habit to meet regularly in order to coordinate their information task as well as to improve it. Another goal for the group as a whole is to support and guide those members who want to start going out in the schools themselves. Some times the group meetings have had the character of seminars with discussions of and lectures on associating topics.
As a matter of fact the group has grown as more survivors have joined it prepared to start telling their life stories with the help of veterans. The first times they do it together with somebody who knows how it is to meet schoolchildren and young people. It is important that the number of informants grows because visits of survivors telling about their experience is very much wanted. Not only schools are asking for it, also other organizations such as churches and parents associations want information. Informing about ones trauma, having to encounter the terrible memories over and over again, is very agonizing. The informants, however, choose to go on because they consider it a duty. The group meets very favorable reactions and one consider these testimonies by living witnesses very powerful.
One member of the group, a retired teacher with good and suitable inside knowledge about how schools are operating, have taken on the task of coordination between informants and calling teachers. She is also able to guide and assist the teachers to plan this kind of education. It is very important that the students have access to a background of historical facts to match the presentation of personal and oral memories; the survivors just telling about what they themselves have experienced.
A special explanation to the activity described here is connected with the events of increasing violence having occurred over the last years against people who are seen as "strangers".
For further information:
Mirjam Sterner Carlberg
The Jewish Community in Gothenburg, Tel: +46-31-17 72 45, Fax: +46-31-71193 60