Wszystkie zdjęcia w artykule: Musealia, José Barea.
Your exhibition shows 97 survivors. They were born in different parts of Europe, they went through various concentration camps, hid during the war, were deported to Siberia. The common element is their emigration to Sweden. Where did the inspiration come from? Where does such a project start? Do you have a personal story in common with the project?
By the end of 2017, I was unexpectedly offered a scholarship by Michael Bindefelt's foundation, for the purpose of photographing the last Holocaust survivors in Sweden. I embraced the task without hesitation.
Almost all the survivors were unknown to me, had little to none experience in front of a camera, were closer to 90 or older, and had suffered through horrendous experiences.
In addition to this honorary assignment, the main reason for accepting this task was to shed light on this very important part of history, and make an effort to work against antisemitism that is currently growing strongly around the world.
During my childhood, I came to learn that my closest friends were deeply affected by the Holocaust. Their older brother and parents came to Sweden after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. The fact that they were of Jewish descent was nothing we talked much about. My childhood years were enriched by getting to know the Hungarian culture which made a great impact in my life, with all that entails: the openness to others, hospitality, Hungarian food, tall tales, family traditions etc.
The father of the family had unpleasant memories of the Holocaust. During the war, at the age of ten, he and his father had been deported to a major sports arena in Budapest for further deportation to the concentration camp Auschwitz.
All images in the article: Mikael Jansson