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The Swedish Jews and the Holocaust “We will be judged in our own time and in the future by measuring the aid thatwe,inhabitantsofafreeandfortunatecountry,gavetoourbrethreninthis time of greatest disaster.” This declaration, made shortly after the pogroms of November 1938 by the Jewish communities in Sweden, was truer than anyone could have forecast at the time. Pontus Rudberg focuses on this sensitive issue – Jewish responses to the Nazi persecutions and mass murder of Jews. What actions did Swedish Jews take to aid the Jews in Europe during the years 1933–45 and what determined their policies and actions? Specific attention is given to the aid efforts of the Jewish Community of Stockholm, including the range of activities in which the community engaged and the challenges and opportunities presented by official refugee policy in Sweden. Pontus Rudberg holds a PhD in history. He is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Hugo Valentin Centre at Uppsala University in Sweden. Routledge Studies in Second World War History The Second World War remains today the most seismic political event of the past hundred years, an unimaginable upheaval that impacted upon every country on earth and is fully ingrained in the consciousness of the world’s citizens. Traditional narratives of the conflict are entrenched to such a degree that new research takes on an ever important role in helping us make sense of World War II. Aiming to bring to light the results of new archival research and exploring notions of memory, propaganda, genocide, empire and culture, Routledge Studies in Second World War History sheds new light on the events and legacy of global war. Recent titles in this series The Swedish Jews and the Holocaust Pontus Rudberg The Swedish Jews and the Holocaust Pontus Rudberg Firstpublished2017 byRoutledge 2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN andbyRoutledge 711ThirdAvenue,NewYork,NY10017 RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness ©2017PontusRudberg TherightofPontusRudbergtobeidentifiedasauthorofthisworkhasbeen assertedbyhiminaccordancewithsections77and78oftheCopyright, DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedor utilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,now knownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orin anyinformationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwriting fromthepublishers. Trademarknotice:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksorregistered trademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationandexplanationwithout intenttoinfringe. BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Acatalogrecordforthisbookhasbeenrequested ISBN:978-1-138-04588-0(hbk) ISBN:978-1-315-17174-6(ebk) TypesetinBembo byTaylor&FrancisBooks Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1 The first phase: 1933–1938 49 2 The second phase: From November 1938 to the outbreak of the war 111 3 The third phase: From the outbreak of the war to September 1941 159 4 The fourth phase: Holocaust 186 Conclusions 257 References 260 Index 282 ‘Pontus Rudberg has opened up yet another, and a new, chapter in the history of the Holocaust. How the relatively small Jewish community of Sweden responded to the catastrophe that took place just on their neutral border offers a fascinating picture of humanitarianism, solidarity, anxiety, and the limitations of possible action in the face of grave crisis.’ Hasia R. Diner, Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History and Director, Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History, New York University, USA ‘GoodSamaritansorself-interestedbystanders–howdidJewsinneutral Sweden reacttothepredicamentofEuropeanJewryintheHitlerera?Inthisbook,based on sound and careful scholarship, Pontus Rudberg examines a historical issue of profound moral consequence. He offers judicious and fair-minded treatment of the conduct of the main institutions involved as well as insight into the motiva- tions, attitudes, and human limitations of the chief protagonists. By turning the spotlight on this little-known aspect of Swedish and Jewish history, Rudberg illuminesourunderstandingofindividualandcollectiveresponsestothechallenge posedbyNazigenocide.’ Bernard Wasserstein is Professor emeritus of Modern Jewish history at University of Chicago and currently Allianz Visiting Professor of Modern Jewish History at the Ludwig Maximilians Universität, Munich He is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy Acknowledgments My warmest thanks go out to all the people who have helped me to complete my doctoral dissertation, The Swedish Jews and the victims of Nazi terror, 1933– 1945, that this book is based on. Especially my supervisors at the Department of History at Uppsala University, Dr Lars M. Andersson, Professor Torkel Jansson and Professor Margaret Hunt who have all read several drafts at various stages throughout the process and who were always there to answer my questions, encourage me and point me in the right direction. I am also indebted to Pro- fessorsJan Lindegren and KlasÅmark who read the manuscript at a stage when I thought that it was almost finished. They helped me realize that it was not. I wouldalsoliketothankDrPärFrohnertforhisreadingandcommentingonthe dissertationaswellasDrClemensMaier-WolthausenandDrKarinKvistGeverts for their support and good advice throughout the process. Professor Bernard Wasserstein, the faculty opponent at the public defence in Uppsala, elegantly pointed out how the dissertation could be improved. Thank you, Bernard. My research project would have been impossible if it was not for the fantastic help I received at the various archives I visited during the course of my research. First, I would like to thank the Jewish Community of Stockholm for granting meaccesstoitsarchives.I alsoowea specialthankstoLars HallbergandMikaela Nybohm at the Swedish National Archives who with great expertise helped me to navigate through the records and files. I would also like to thank the staff at theCentralZionistArchivesandthearchiveof YadVashemin Jerusalem.Atthe JDC archives in New York I received great help from the director of the archives andrecordscollection,SherryHyman,aswellasfromreferencehistorian Shelley Helfand and senior archivist Misha Mitsel. I would also like to thank the staff at the Center for Jewish History in New York, especially YIVO’s archivists Gunnar Berg and Leo Greenbaum. Last but not least, my wife Elin has lived with this project for a long time and I owe her not only for the many readings and valuable comments. This book is dedicated to her. This page intentionally left blank Introduction The Jewish response to Nazi persecution and the Holocaust is still a sensitive and controversial topic in many countries. It caused heated debate even before the full extent of Nazi crimes against the Jews became known to the world. Sweden is no exception.Thequestionhaspoliticalandreligiousdimensions,and it also touches upon issues of identity. Allegations that Swedish Jews and their foremost representative organization, the Jewish Community of Stockholm (Mosaiska Församlingen i Stockholm, MFST), did too little, too late, or even tried to obstruct the efforts of others to aid the Jews of Europe, have recurred from time to time ever since the Holocaust. The Swedish Jewish leadership has been called passive, pusillanimous, and incompetent because of their alleged failure to respond generously and effectively. Several scholars have claimed that Swedish Jews feared that aiding more Jews to come to Sweden would cause an increase in anti-Semitic sentiments and that this explains their purported passivity. It has also been suggested that Swedish Jews saw Jewish refugees as a threat to their relatively newly achieved position, given that Swedish Jews were generally well integrated in Swedish society.1 Charges against the Jewish leadership in Stockholm were made already during the first years of the Holocaust and climaxed in the immediate post-war years. In a speech in the Swedish Parliament in January 1945, Gustav Möller, the social democratic Minister of Health and Social Affairs, one of the politi- cians primarily responsible for the country’s policy towards Jewish refugees,2 admitted that the official Swedish policy regarding Jewish refugees had been restrictive. However, Möller tried to put the blame on the MFST claiming that “the Swedish Government was at least as generous in letting the Jews into this country as the Jewish Community of Stockholm”.3 This claim was later repe- ated by the undersecretary to Minister Möller’s office, Per Nyström. Over the years, similar accusations have resurfaced from time to time in the Jewish press, in popular fiction and non-fiction books and even in scholarly studies.4 It is no coincidence that the dominant narrative is one of a Jewish establish- ment failing in its duty to their brethren out of fear or self-preservation. This narrative served to displace blame for Sweden’s restrictive policy towards Jews before 1943 and also as a battering ram in the Jewish debate and struggle for a new post-Holocaust identity. In this sense, the Swedish Jewish debate was not

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