Facts: “Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not Far Away ”
The exhibition “Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away ”at Malmö Fair is open to the public 26 May – 30 September, with the possibility of extension during the autumn.
It has been created by the Spanish exhibition company Musealia, in collaboration with the Auschwitz Museum and ten other institutions.
The exhibition has previously been shown in Madrid, New York and Kansas City.
Over 700 authentic objects from the Holocaust will be displayed. Around 400 objects have been borrowed from the Auschwitz Museum – other objects come from around 20 institutions or from private collections.
When Tommy Ringart stops in one of the showrooms at Malmö Fair, he is taken. On the walls are pictures of prisoners who have just arrived at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp’s long train platform.
– It’s a little too close. It feels like you are in the middle of it yourself, I have never experienced that before. What strikes me is that people look so calm, they do not understand what to expect, says Tommy Ringart, who is chairman of the association Holocaust survivors in Sweden.
Malmö – fourth stop
It was here that Ringart’s father Jakob and mother Hanna saw their parents for the last time in the summer of 1944 after the Nazis had emptied the ghetto in Polish Lodz. First, men and women were separated – then the next selection took place on the platform.
– My grandfather was going in one direction and then my dad wanted to go with him, but then he got hit by one of the striped ones, as he called them. One of the prisoners who helped. He hit him so that he went in another direction. His parents were murdered directly in the gas chambers, while his father managed to survive, Tommy Ringart tells TT.
The photos, taken by the Nazis themselves, are part of the traveling exhibition “Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away “which opens in Malmö Fair on 26 May.
– People must go to Auschwitz and Auschwitz must come to the people. The most important thing about the exhibition is that it is a tribute to the victims of the Holocaust, says Luis Ferreiro, director of the touring exhibition.
Over 700 objects are included and the exhibition has previously been shown in Madrid, New York and Kansas City. Malmö will be the fourth stop and the only one in Scandinavia.
– It’s not just about what you see as a visitor, it is important to remember that each object has a story and its own voice, says Luis Ferreiro.
“The whole history of Europe”
The first seven rooms in the exhibition are about putting the Holocaust in a larger context. An attempt to show that what happened in Nazi Germany’s extermination camp did not happen overnight.
– The gas chambers in Auschwitz are the last step in a very long process. It is easy to blame a person or a group of people, but this genocide would not have been possible if entire societies had not acted in a certain way. It would not have been possible if, for example, neighbors of the victims had not acted in a certain way. This is the whole history of Europe, says Luis Ferreiro.
“It feels like you are in the middle of it yourself, I have never experienced that before,” says Tommy Ringart, chairman of the association Holocaust Survivors in Sweden, when he visits one of the exhibition rooms that shows pictures of prisoners who arrived at the train platform in the Holocaust camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. Ringart’s mother and father were prisoners in Auschwitz and survived.
Just over a week before the premiere, the installation is in the final stages. Ana Galán, who is responsible for objects, hangs a striped uniform in one of the stands. A red triangle is visible on the upper part, which means that it was carried by a political prisoner.
– 90 percent of the victims in Auschwitz were Jews, but in the exhibition we also tell the victims who were Roma and Sinti. About those who were political prisoners or who were there because they were gay, says Luis Ferreiro.
Even before the opening, it is clear that around 25,000 school students will visit the exhibition hall in Hyllie, not far from the Öresund Bridge. The hope is that many Danes will also cross the strait.
– The exhibition is fantastic and everything that is done so that we do not forget what happened during the Holocaust is important. It is part of our history, says Tommy Ringart.
Ana Galán, object manager, hangs a uniform worn by a political prisoner in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. “Extremely traumatic”
It is also a story that neither began nor ended with Nazi Germany, Ringart emphasizes.
– What happened during the Holocaust was unfortunately part of a European history. Anti-Semitism has existed in Europe since its inception almost and despite the Holocaust, conspiracy theories about Jews remain. Unfortunately, he says.
The exhibition is a tool to counter anti-Semitism. For the survivors of the Holocaust who are able to lecture in schools, there are fewer and fewer.
– Before, there were 50 survivors who were out and told. Now there are maybe five left. The second generation and also the third generation now have to go out to the schools and tell stories, but it is not an easy process. Because what they experienced was extremely traumatic and something you would rather not be reminded of, says Tommy Ringart.