Madame Tussaud in Stockholm ? - No, Swedish Holocaust Museum - Questioned "How was life in the ghetto?", "Madame Tussaud" answered "Funny!".

I felt as if I was at Madame Tussaud when I visited the Holocaust Museum in Stockholm. I saw a full-size old, very distinguished woman, beautifully dressed and directly from a hairdresser. She wore pearls and on her both hands she carried what looked like very large shining diamond rings.

I felt as if I was at Madame Tussaud when I visited the Holocaust Museum in Stockholm. I saw a full-size old, very distinguished woman, beautifully dressed and directly from a hairdresser. She wore pearls and on her both hands she carried what looked like very large shining diamond rings. There were also 20 empty chairs, some with wooden boxes with a button and instructions on how to ask questions to the person visualized in 3D in front of them.  She was able to answer the question. A young couple asked her How was it in the ghetto. Her answer was Funny. 

Above, two Holocaust survivors who came to Sweden at the end of WWII and were hospitalized in Sweden. Viola Horvath from Budapest and Chaim Kozieniecki from Lodz.

Such a new technique was used in the ABBA show in London. Here the technique also enables viewers to ask questions and hear responses in real-time - AI artificial intelligence techniques. The idea in Stockholm was to ask the survivors about their life experiences. It differs, however, from the ABBA in London. In London, the artificial ABBA group members were shown as they looked during the actual period of time, not 80 years later.  Even if the questions are answered almost naturally, there is a big gap between the survivor and the possible youngsters like school classes visiting the museum. The pictures of the former Jewish inmates from Bergen-Belsen and Ravensbrück who came to Sweden at the end of WWII and 3D Jewish Survivors recorded at age minus 90 do not have anything in common. Actually, the reactions of the youth may be similar to the ones used during different antisemitic propaganda. So, I personally deeply dislike this so costly "revolutionary concept"! 

Oral history recordings made 80 years later have been also questionable. However, one can choose the persons who recorded their experiences earlier.

The choice of the persons for such a "revolutionary concept" should be dictated in a way so they describe also the history of the Holocaust. However, the choice of the person was done not after her history during the Holocaust but on financial grounds as she and her family supported several projects in the world. It is amazing that a governmental museum run by the taxpayer's money can be so easily "bribed". Maybe not directly by indirectly!  When at the Swedish Holocaust Museum I met a young pair asking "Madame Tussaud" How was life in the ghetto.  In Swedish Hur var livet i gettot. "Madame Tussaud" answered Funny, in Swedish Roligt. On a question about the time period she spent in the ghetto, she had no answer.

Another person of the "chosen people" (by the Swedish Holocaust Museum today not on stage) is Tobias Rawet a person I met several times at the meetings of the Swedish Holocaust Survivors Association where I was the only second-generation member. Tobias was, like other members sharing his testimonies from the Holocaust in the Swedish schools. His history as a child survivor starts in September 1939 when Germans enter Lodz and seven months later, in February 1940, the Nazis established a ghetto in Lodz. About 160,000 Lodz Jews were forced into this small area.

None of the chosen people, this time chosen by the Swedish governmental museum is a typical Holocaust survivor who came to Sweden at the end of WWII. Both "digitalized persons" came to Sweden several years after WWII ended in the late forties and fifties.  

It is known that a typical Holocaust survivor came to Sweden during the period of April 28, 1945, and July 26, 1945. Most of the Holocaust survivors were Polish Jews who were imprisoned from 1939-1940 in the ghettos and thereafter transported to concentration- and death camps. Most of them who came to Sweden came by the White Boat mission and several also by White buses and two "Spoke trains" to Padborg in Denmark that arrived in May 1945. Most of the survivors were women born during the twenties. So the choice of presented Survivors by the the Swedish governmental museum is questionable. The second biggest group was the group of Hungarian Jews.

I know that for the Swedish youth, it will be easier and more natural to identify with for example two Holocaust survivors like Viola and Chaim, two Holocaust survivors that came to Sweden at the end of WWII and were hospitalized in Sweden. Viola Horvath from Budapest and Chaim Kozieniecki from Lodz, see the photos above. 

The history of "destruction" starts in September 1939 although the Nazi's efforts to get Germany and thereafter also Austria started already in the early thirties by the number of antisemitic laws that put pressure on the Jews to leave the country.

We have to remember that the first ghetto was created in Poland in October 1939. The period of "ghettoization" with hunger and death was followed by the period starting in 1942 of the "Industrial Holocaust" - the murder of millions of Jews in the death camps.

What is the cause of this very obvious "selection" situation with Madame Tussaud at the Holocaust museum and the Jewish congregation in Stockholm? Most probably, the money. Money were used during the entire Holocaust to save the life. Just for a few. The economy of the Jewish congregation has gone back for years. Last four years the deficit was over twenty-three million kroner and the membership growth continues to be negative, several percent every year. This negative budget is the result of several new hires and it is not a question of the security people...

As I reported earlier, the Jewish congregation used for the wages of "the new hires" also governmental funds aimed for preserving Holocaust victim's graves.