I had the opportunity to interview two diplomats about their personal memories: Ambassador Gunnar Hägglöf who was stationed in London during the war and Torsten Brandel, Secretary at the Swedish Legation in Berlin, accompanied Count Bernadotte to several of his meetings with Himmler. He told me the amusing story that Himmler thought he was really going to meet General Eisenhower and was worried as to who should greet whom first. Himmler was politely told by Bernadotte that he would never meet the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces!
All those interviewed agreed with the purpose of my book: to let people testify so that the evil times should never be forgotten. Hence the name of my book ”The perils of Forgetting”.
It is important to relate this historic course of events. Soon all those who personally experienced those years will no longer be with us.
“Who will tell when we are no more?“ they said to me. They all expressed the fear that what happened might be forgotten. They were grateful for my work to prevent this from occurring. They also wanted to protest against all those who maintain that the annihilation of six million Jews never took place.
I might mention that I believe that we all have a responsibility, a duty, to protest and act on behalf of human rights whenever they are suppressed. As the Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka said: “Humanity dies in all those who keep silent in the face of tyranny.” And the Babylonian Talmud emphasizes: “He who could have protested against injustice, but failed to do so, will be called do account therefore.” (Avoda Zarah 18A) The ethical message of the Jewish heritage is thus that we should speak up when acts of injustice are committed.
May I give you a picture of what I saw in Malmö in the spring of 1945 when the 21 000 people saved by the Bernadotte expedition arrived:
The ferry from Copenhagen arrived slowly to the dock. Onboard were several white buses with a red cross and with the Swedish flag painted on their sides. They had brought people during bombardments and air attacks from the German concentration camps through Austria, Germany and Denmark to safety in Sweden. One driver of a white bus had lost his life in Germany during an air raid. Others were seriously injured. They had all risked their lives caught in the intensive battles during the last days of the war.
On board were people of all nationalities, English, Chinese, Russian or Spanish. At the port was hustle and bustle. Swedish Red Cross volunteers, sanitary soldiers, policemen, railway personnel, soldiers, representatives of foreign embassies.
Over the gangway streamed healthy looking tall blond Norwegian boys, sailors, fishermen, students who had already been taken care of in Denmark. They looked healthy and fit as they came ashore. They eagerly received our chocolates and cigarettes. They intended to go home to Norway to continue to fight for the liberation of the country, still occupied by Germany.
These images were in strong contrast to all those who arrived in railway carriages directly to the railway station in Helsingborg, sick and dying, bedridden persons, coughing feverishly and whispering a prayer, begging for water, or just wanting to hold the hand of a fellow human being.
Others were tired, emaciated, staggering from the ferry, supporting, almost carrying each other ashore. In grey striped prison clothes or blankets stiff with dirt, sometimes stinking horribly from carbolic acid. No stockings, legs as thin as sticks, their skin was red and chapped, dirty shawls covering their heads. Some were with only rags around their feet instead of footwear, some clip-clopping in torn “shoes’ with wooden soles. They looked scared. Their only possession was a dirty bundle or a Red Cross parcel, pressed to their chest.
Some of the Jews wore the yellow Star of David, on their prison clothes, while others had blue squares on theirs. A green triangle meant the prisoner was a habitual criminal, a violet one was that of a religious, pink denoted a homosexual, while black was for an asocial person. A red triangle showed the bearer to be a political criminal - today we would call him a “resistance fighter.” All these were signs sewn on cloth on their backs along with the painted x for prisoner.
We greeted the survivors as they came with a “hello”. When we thought somebody might be Jewish, we said “Shalom”. This lit up their faces. “We can’t believe it, it is just like a dream,” they said.
But when we mistook someone for being Jewish and said “Shalom”, some non-Jewish Polish women refugees would spit. The anti-Semitism had been fanned infernally by the Germans.
Sweden had been near isolated throughout the war and many products were rationed: butter, bread, meat, cheese, coffee, clothing, shoes, tobacco, cigarettes, etc. We could not be very generous with the new arrival of prisoners. A woman could for example only be offered one dress, one pair of shoes, two pairs of stocks, etc. - and a cardigan or canvas shoes only on a doctor’s prescription! And no bra!
One of my interviewees told me she had been sent as a social worker to visit a camp in the small province of Skåne. There were about 150 camps in Sweden that summer geared towards receiving the refugees. Over 100 physicians were given the task to give immediate care to the survivors.
In this particular camp the social worker discovered that the Swedish flag was missing from the flagpole. It turns out that the girls had pulled down the blue and yellow flag, torn it in pieces to make bras from it.
But let us go back to the reception of these ex-inmates, a reception which - as I pointed out – was not very good from the material point of view. Emotionally, however, it was overwhelming. The girls, almost 90% of them, came from women’s camps, eg. Ravensbruck, were most warmly received. It was a moment to reflect on the tragedy’s demand on humanity and what it truly means to be a refugee. They responded to the help and goodwill they were offered.
Among the 150 camps throughout Sweden was also the Malmö City museum, the quarantine of the old castle. Some of the women were housed there. Mattresses were placed on the floor, within the big halls, decorated with paintings, statues – all with the goal to just rest and sleep.
I spoke to a woman who seemed very weak, lying on one of the mattresses. She had worked at the SS office in Auschwitz. Her task was to register the persons who had been gassed. She had been working there for 18 months. She seemed to be very near a breaking point. As was I!
I came back two days later, however, and met that same woman, now an elegant French lady in a nice dress and hat – a gift from the Swedish government: “You know Madame, I am a lady and I am not used to wearing ready made clothes. I like to have my dresses tailored in Paris. Could you help me get some of my money from Switzerland so that I can have dresses made for me? This way I can feel like a lady again”.
Three Jewish children ages 9 to 15, English and Argentine citizens, had been permitted to receive Red Cross parcels in the camps. They now would like to have access to books. I was very pleased to find a copy of “Alice in Wonderland’ in a book shop. It was not so easy in those days.
A small dance hall in the city called Valencia was also used as quarantine. There were 100 young Polish girls, of whom 35 were Jewish. The leader of the youngest girls was a German born wife of the Polish rabbi. I told her that I was sent to offer assistance from the Joint Distribution Committee. It was as if this was the greatest miracle of their last lifesaving days. “Children,” she said, “you know what Joint is and you know from home what it means? Now we will be taken care of.”
“Could we just see a book with Hebrew letters?” and “Could we have some Sabbath candles?” And she asked if we could help in getting them separated from the Polish women since they were so anti-Semitic. This request we later heard often.
In the Tennis stadium were 300 Jewish girls from Poland happily sleeping on the floor mattresses. Some of them asked for religious help. They wanted to read the “gaumel prayer” the thanks when one’s life has been saved. We were permitted to arrange for an ambulating synagogue service with a minyan, the ten men needed for service - to every camp we chose - even the quarantines. It was a very special courtesy.
We, the helpers, were overwhelmed facing enormous problems that we needed to solve. We had for instance no interpreters for many of the language requirements. We had to help and rely on each other and use our imagination.
We were for example unable at times to explain to the new arrivals why they had to take a bath immediately upon arrival. That reminded them too much of the “bath houses” at Auschwitz and the deadly gas Cyclon B. At times they thought they were still in the hands of murderers and were frightened, so they refused to enter the bath. Not until a Swedish volunteer at one time a teacher tore off his clothes and rushed naked into the bath, did they dare to follow him.
Some women were so depressed, so despondent, so degraded. Sometimes a little thing can be of at least a momentary help. A store promised me a gift worth two hundred dollars, which was a big sum at that time. But what could I find that was more rationed? Lipsticks, brooches, handkerchiefs - they proved an excellent remedy for restoring pride in a woman’s self-image and self-respect. Some of my “saved” friends still remember the lipsticks.
In May of 1995 a commemoration of the rescue of Holocaust Survivors to Sweden was held at the Museum of Tel Aviv. Miriam Akavia, one of the rescued, said among other things in her speech: “We knew only the German beast. We were shattered by agony and grief and losses . . .Our stay in Sweden was for many of us a wonderful period in our lives. The Swedish people treated us in a philanthropic – humanitarian manner, expecting nothing in return.”
