It was atmospheric when the Mental Health Museum arranged a memorial service with candle lighting on All Saints' Day, to draw attention to the people who never came home from Säter Hospital.
"I'm a curator at the museum and walk around among the history of these people all day. You can see the struggle and suffering of some people all the way to the gravesite. Then it feels great to light a candle for them, says Lars Andersson Schaar at the Mental Health Museum.
Surrounded by stigma
He describes the cemetery as deplorable. Forgotten. Filled with dead people with a medical history surrounded by stigma.
The cemetery was opened in 1913. The last funeral took place in 1951. For almost 40 years, the hospital buried the patients that no relative wanted, or could afford, to bring home, there.
"No one cares about those lying here"
"There may be a hundred crosses left, and of course there are a few candles sometimes lit, but usually no one cares about the people lying there.
But today, a path of marshals and photo projections illuminated their memory, and the museum held an open house to show their history.
The arrangement was also aimed at the future.
"It's also about paying attention to those who fall outside today. Who visits them? Even in life, says curator Lars Andersson Schaar.