The debate about the Holocaust Museum: "Stockholm fixation an equality problem"

The disappointment was not long in coming after Tuesday's announcement.

Malmö, which applied and lobbied for the Holocaust Museum to end up in the country's third largest city, was defeated by the capital.

- I think you miss a historic chance to take advantage of the historic sites here in Malmö and Skåne that have connections to the Holocaust, says Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh (S), chairman of the municipal board in Malmö, to SVT Skåne.

She refers, among other things, to the white buses that arrived at Malmö and Malmö Museum, which became a temporary refugee camp.

Torkild Strandberg (L), chairman of the municipal board in Landskrona, who hoped for a museum in the city, is in the same line and mentions the Citadel, a castle in Landskrona that served as a refugee camp during World War II.

- I feel a little puzzled by the argument that if something is important, it is not possible to locate outside the capital, Torkild Strandberg says to SVT Helsingborg.

"Malmö's children are poor"

The government's argument for a location in the capital is that "a location in Stockholm makes it easier for schoolchildren and the general public around the country to visit the museum", according to an article in DN debate.

Ida Ölmedal, Sydsvenskan's cultural director, reacts to this.

She thinks that "the government's Stockholm fixation is an equality problem."

"An overwhelming majority of the country's state museums are already in Stockholm," writes Ölmedal and continues:

“The government seems to live in the delusion that the rest of Sweden makes a pilgrimage to Stockholm during the holidays.

But many of Malmö's children are poor.

Poverty is a limitation of movement ”.

"Pull off the sacrificial cardigan"

The Jewish congregation in Malmö already has suggestions on how the museum could be more accessible to students outside Stockholm.

- Maybe through satellite museums or traveling exhibitions or digital solutions or that the state can contribute a pot for trips to the Holocaust Museum, says the parish spokesman Fredrik Sieradzki to Sydsvenskan.

The editorial board at Sydsvenskan, however, has a completely different attitude and writes that the loss is "partly self-inflicted":

"Now it is time to pull off the scraping and destructive sacrificial jacket and see what we here in the region can do together," they write.