This article takes as its point of departure the Swedish government’s directive for the committee of inquiry to propose a museum of the Holocaust and its instruction that “stories from survivors with a connection to Sweden should be of central importance” in the future museum. In Sweden, there are a great number of archival collections containing survivor stories. However, most of these collections were not gathered with the intention to preserve culturally significant stories for the future. Rather, the survivor stories collected were intended as evidence in Nazi trials or for future scientific or historical studies.

The article explores the history of the practice of collecting and archiving survivor stories in Sweden. The empirical example consists of six of the largest collections with “survivor stories”, initiated during the years 1945 to 2020. The focus is on describing and comparing the different motives for how and why the various collections were initiated and the initiators ideas on what the collected material would be used for. Who were the initiators? What documentation methods were used during the different collection processes? What do the different documentation processes tell us about the perception of what a survivor story is and how it should be collected and used at different times? How has the perception of the “survivor story” changed or not changed over time? The end of the article tentative considers what we can learn from these previous collection initiatives in Sweden and how this might be taken forward by the new Holocaust museum.