Living History Forum

The Living History Forum (Swedish: Forum för levande historia) is a Swedish state administrative authority under the Ministry of Culture, established in 2003.

Living History Forum
Forum för levande historia

Office and exhibition space of the Forum for Living History in the Gamla stan, Stockholm, Sweden
Agency overview
FormedJanuary 1, 2003 (2003-01-01)
Headquarters
59°19′30″N 18°4′4.5″E
Employees35
Annual budgetSEK 59 450 000 (2017)
Minister responsible
  • Caroline Källner
Parent agencyMinistry of Culture (Sweden)
Websitewww.levandehistoria.se

Mission, background and activities

The Living History Forum is a government agency[1] for the promotion of democracy, tolerance and human rights. The authority is mandated to strive to strengthen people's will to actively work for the equal value of all people.[2] It produces investigations and factual material, shows exhibitions for schoolchildren and the general public and conducts information activities in general.

The authority was established in 2003. The origin of the authority was the information initiative Living History initiated by Göran Persson in June 1997 . The background to this was in turn a report by the Center for Immigrant Research at Stockholm University and the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention[3] the same month. This report had concluded that 66% of Swedish young people surveyed had said they were "completely sure" that the Holocaust had taken place, 14% were "fairly sure", while 8% said they were "not at all sure" or "quite unsure".

Living history was a one-time effort and included the book ...About This You Should Learn...: A book about the Holocaust in Europe 1935-1945. The government later appointed an inquiry into how the activities could be made permanent[4] and a parliamentary decision was made in December 2001 to establish an authority.

Heléne Lööw was the agency's first superintendent, until July 2006.

The Living History Forum has an office and exhibition space at Stora Nygatan 10 in the Old Town of Stockholm , a property designed by Erik Josephson and built in 1909–1912 for Skandinaviska Banken.

Superintendents
  • 2003–2006 – Heléne Lööw
  • 2006–2007 – Anna-Karin Johansson (t.f.)
  • 2007–2014 – Eskil Franck
  • 2014–2015 – Katarina Kristensson (t.f.)
  • 2015–2021 Ingrid Lomfors[5]
  • 2021- Caroline Källner (t.f.)

Selection of reports
    • 2003 Intolerance Report
    • 2006 Eva Tiby, together with Anna-Maria Sörby: A study of homophobic hate crimes in Sweden
    • 2006 Henrik Bachner and Jonas Ring: Anti-Semitic attitudes and perceptions in Sweden
    • 2006 Jonas Otterbäck and Pieter Bevelander: Report on Islamophobia
    • 2008 Crimes Against Humanity Under Communist Regimes - in English[6]
    • 2010 The ambiguous intolerance
    • 2011 Summary of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia submitted to the government
    • 2011 Gypsy cultural and linguistic rights
    • 2014 Time for tolerance
    • 2016 Historical research on racism and xenophobia in Sweden
    • 2017 The mechanisms of tolerance: an anthology

The report on anti-Semitism

The survey of anti-Semitism in Sweden attracted a great deal of attention. It was conducted as a survey of attitudes towards Jews and Judaism. Five percent of those surveyed between the ages of 16 and 75 expressed "strong and consistent anti-Semitic attitudes," 36 percent "a partially ambivalent attitude toward Jews," and 59 percent rejected anti-Semitic views. Prime Minister Göran Persson said he was frightened and surprised by this outcome.[7]

The report's methodology met with criticism from three professors of political science at the University of Gothenburg , including Ulf Bjereld.[8] The criticism was rejected by the report editors[9] and commented upon by other researchers.[10]

Exhibitions
  • 2003 Borders , in collaboration with Riksutställningar
  • 2004 Balt extradition
  • 2005-06 The Prejudice Tour
  • 2005-08 Sweden and the Holocaust , produced by Roy Andersson
  • 2007-08 Anne Frank & Jag
  • 2007-09 Plays role
  • 2008-09 Little brother sees you , traveling exhibition
  • 2009-10 Dinner with Pol Pot, an exhibition about ideological blinders and selective vision
  • 2010-11 (O) human , an exhibition about racial biology and forced sterilization in Sweden . One part of two, the other part is displayed at the Ethnographic Museum .
  • 2011-09 PK - an exhibition about intolerance
  • 2014 We are Roma - meet the people behind the myth
  • 2015 All people! On rights and equal value
  • 2015 70 years since the liberation
  • 2016 Action T4 - on human vision in Nazi Germany
  • 2017 Stamped
  • 2017 Propaganda - risk of influence
  • 2017 Never again! About genocide
  • 2017 Gulag: That grandfather did not tell

Expansion

After the parliamentary elections in 2006 , the new government expanded its mandate to include the dissemination of information about crimes committed by communist regimes.[11] The Forum for Living History has also been criticized by the Left Party, a Socialist organisation, among other things based on the idea that it is up to researchers and not state authorities to write history. In this view, the state should not be opinion-forming, but ideological debate should be conducted by parties, organizations and popular movements.[12]

The political scientist Emil Uddhammar criticized those opposing the Forum's initiatives for wanting to silence crimes against humanity committed in the name of Marxism.[13][14]

Per Anger Prize

Forum for Living History has the government's mandate to administer the Per Anger Prize. This has been awarded since 2004 to people and organizations who have excelled in helping others escape oppression and violence.

References
  1. "THE LIVING HISTORY FORUM". FORUM FÖR LEVANDE HISTORIA. Archived from the original on 3 February 2021. Retrieved 25 November 2021. The Living History Forum is a public agency. We work for democracy and equality between all people, using lessons learned from the Holocaust.
  2. "Förordning (2007:1197) med instruktion för Forum för levande historia".
  3. Anders Lange, Heléne Lööw, Stéphane Bruchfeld och Ebba Hedlund: Utsatthet för etniskt och politiskt relaterat hot m.m., spridning av rasistisk och antirasistisk propaganda samt attityder till demokrati m.m. bland skolelever Centrum för invandringsforskning, Stockholm 1997
  4. Slutrapport 2001-01-31 från Kommittén med uppgift att utreda etablerandet av ett Forum för Levande historia, SOU 2001:05, Regeringskansliet januari 2001 Archived 2005-04-28 at the Wayback Machine
  5. (Press release) http://www.levandehistoria.se/press/release/2014/ingrid-lomfors-ny-chef-forum-levande-historia. {{cite press release}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. "Crimes against humanity under communist regimes - Research review".
  7. Notis om intervju, Sveriges Radio 2006-03-16
  8. Ulf Bjereld: Judar ställs mot oss andra i Svenska Dagbladet 2006-03-17
  9. Anders Lange och Henrik Bachner: De metoder vi använde är väl beprövade i Svenska Dagbladet 2006-03-25
  10. Lars M Andersson och Mattias Tydén: Våga se judehatet i Dagens Nyheter 2006-09-09
  11. Levande, inte statlig historia ledare i Dagens Nyheter 2006-12-23.
  12. "Motion från vänsterpartiet: Avveckla Forum för levande historia som myndighet". Newsdesk. 3 October 2003.
  13. Emil Uddhammar: En skamfläck för Växjö universitet Archived 2012-09-14 at the Wayback Machine Smålandsposten 2008-04-28.
  14. Douglas Brommesson, Gissur Ó. Erlingsson och Daniel Silander: Debatten har kommit att handla om Uddhammar Smålandsposten 2008-04-14.
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