In this chapter we trace the journey of the Polish Research Institute (PIZ) archive at Lund University Library from the making of the archive at Lund, to its deposition at the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford University, to its return to Lund University Library, and its early digitization. Studying this archival journey, we specifically engage with a set of different ethical dilemmas that have been involved in these each of these processes and spatialities. We suggest that the collection and creation of the archive until the point of digitization has been a history of contested spaces and this journey has involved the creation and maintenance of different kinds of ‘vulnerabilities'.

Although many survivors of the Holocaust came to and remained in Sweden after the Second World War, Swedish historiography has never shown much interest in their lives and the roles that they played in Swedish political, cultural, and social life. More than twenty years after the Stockholm international forum conferences, this panel thinks it is time that survivors – as complex figures who continued to survive in their new country –receive the scholarly attention they deserve: as historical figures, discursive constructs and as archival subjects. Together, the three panellists are endeavouring to redefine what “Sweden and the Holocaust” means, arguing that victims and victimisation as well as survivors and survival constitute equally important phenomena compared to the much-explored subjects of bystanderism and rescue. 

Collecting in times of crisis is a precarious task. In recent years, oral historians have considered the risks and pitfalls that so called crisis or rapid response collecting entail. However, in countries where oral history practices are not dominant within the cultural heritage sector, these discussions surrounding ethics and collecting have had little impact. In this article we problematize the absence of oral history perspectives on the ethics of crisis collecting through a Swedish case study involving the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) and Sweden's most prominent cultural heritage institution, Nordiska Museet (the Nordic Museum). In 2015, DN started interviewing refugees for a social media-based project entitled RefugeeSweden. Excerpts from the interviews as well as photographs of the refugees were published on Instagram and Twitter, with Nordiska Museet later acquiring this material. Through this case study we show how the act of digitization constitutes a process of transformation which fundamentally affects collections and how they can be understood. In addition, we demonstrate how seemingly inclusive notions of digitization and representation can obscure exclusionary practices of institutions that have not considered cocreation or participatory practices.

Although digitization has become a word that is almostsynonymous with democratization and citizen participation, manymuseums and other cultural heritage institutions have found it difficult to live up to this political vision of inclusivity and access for all.In Sweden, political ambitions to digitize the cultural heritage sectorare high. Yet, institutions still struggle to reconcile their previouspractices with new technologies and ethical guidelines for collecting and curating material. In this article we identify, analyse, andtry to find resolutions for the current gap that exists between cultural heritage practice and government policy on digitization, openaccess, and research ethics. By examining two Swedish examplesof Holocaust collections that have not been digitized because of internal policies of secrecy and confidentiality, we attempt to demonstrate how discourses about vulnerability affect the ways in whichcertain archival practices resist policies of accessibility and ethicalresearch. In order to unpack the discourses on vulnerability, Carol Bacchi’s post-structural approach to policy analysis has been usedtogether with Judith Butler’s theories on vulnerability and resistance. In addition to understanding how cultural heritage institutionsin Sweden have protected some of their collections and how thishas obstructed efforts to make these collections more accessible,we  also offer some suggestions on how these issues can be resolved by reimagining digitization as transformation.