(JTA) — Sweden has plans to launch a Holocaust museum with a focus on Holocaust survivors from the Scandinavian country and a center devoted to the diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.
Announcing the decision to create the museum, Swedish Minister of Social Affairs and Sports Minister Annika Strandhall said Tuesday on Twitter that the news “feels more important than ever.”
The museum is likely to be built in Malmo, a city of approximately 350,000 where dozens of anti-Semitic incidents are recorded annually. It is tentatively slated to be ready to open in 2020, the Dagen news website reported.
A center on Wallenberg, who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust, is expected to attract international visitors, according to Dagen.
The museum will focus on surviving Swedes and collect items, interviews and documents about their experiences. Many of these objects are now scattered at museums, archives and private homes.
In Malmo, first- and second- generation immigrants from the Middle East make up one-third of the population. Several hundred Jews live there.
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