The conference programme contained a number of cultural features. During the opening ceremony, the political messages and other speeches were delivered within a setting composed of cultural contributions. The theme of “Remembrance” provided the criterion for their choice. The opening ceremony began with Tana Ross's recital of the text “Silence”, which is based on her own experience as a child survivor. The performances also included songs and music written by Viktor Ullman, a Jewish composer who was a victim of the Holocaust, sung by Ann Sofie von Otter accompanied by Janos Solyom, piano. To close the opening ceremony, the Romeo & Juliet Choir sang in Yiddish and Ladino, two languages that represent Jewish cultural spheres that flourished until the Holocaust.

There were cultural contributions to the ceremony at Stockholm City Hall as well. These contributions were chosen to illustrate the theme “To Life”. D. Popper's “Requiem for cello” was performed by Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a survivor of the Auschwitz women's orchestra, who was joined in the performance by her son and grandsons. A poem and a second text on the subject of homosexuality were recited by the actor Rikard Wolf. These performances, together with the music performed by a Roma music group, Lelo Nika's Orchestra, served to illustrate the cultural diversity that now lives on in spite of the forces that directed the Holocaust.

In addition, the printed programmes for these two events each began with a poem that was designed to link up with the theme of that particular programme, “Remembrance” and “To Life” respectively.

In conjunction with the conference two exhibitions were also organised. One of these, entitled “Inscriptions”, was an international art exhibition within the framework of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust. This exhibition functioned in the first instance as an integral part of the conference. The exhibition also linked up with one of the workshops included in the conference, “Art and other Media in Holocaust Education and Remembrance”.

The participating artists in “Inscriptions” were:
• Ronald Jones, an artist based in New York and Dean of the School of Arts at Columbia University. Jones contributed two works: “Caesar's Cosmic Garden ” and “Albert Speer's City for 20,000 for the Year 2000.”

• John Baldessari, an American conceptual artist, contributed a video work, “Inventory”.

• Seth Kramer, an artist based in New York , also contributed a video work, “Untitled”.

• Daniel Liebeskind, an architect based in Berlin , contributed a text on the subject of trauma and void.

• Hélène Binet, a photographer based in London , contributed photographs based on Liebeskind's Jewish Museum.

• Lisa Strömbeck, an artist based in Copenhagen and Malmö, contributed a video work, “Imagine this”.

• Max Liljefors and Alfredo Pernin were responsible for curation and production.

The other exhibition that was arranged at the conference venue was entitled “Visas for Life” and was curated by the Righteous Diplomats Project. The exhibits tell, for the first time in this form, an important and largely unknown Holocaust story. The exhibition features the dramatic stories of diplomats and others from various countries who saved or shielded Jewish lives. Collectively these are stories about what may be the most extensive rescue of Jews and other refugees during the Nazi Holocaust. It is based on original photographs collected from the families of the diplomats, eyewitness accounts of survivors and original government records. The exhibition was extended with material on the Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte and the White Busses Action of the Swedish Red Cross.

The participating countries had also been invited to exhibit material during the Conference demonstrating innovative models and projects within the sphere of education about the Holocaust. Twenty countries had made a positive response to this invitation, which gave confe-rence participants the opportunity to walk around parts of the conference venue and benefit from a large and varied display of educational material and pedagogical ideas.