Sweden

In 1939, the Kingdom of Sweden, a parliamentary democracy, declared it would stay neutral in case of a war between the European powers. Germany’s conquest of Denmark and Norway in 1940, however, pulled Sweden into the Third Reich’s military sphere of influence. In this position, Sweden was no longer able to pursue its policy of “active neutrality”.

Before 1939, Sweden had a total population of about 6,326,000 people. Approximately 7,000 of them were Jews. At least 900 more arrived as refugees from occupied Norway, when the Norwegian collaborationist government prepared for the deportation of the country’s Jews in 1942. Since the 1920´s the Swedish refugee policy had been very strict, but faced with growing evidence of deportations and mass murder of the European Jews, and especially the deportation of the Norwegian Jews in 1942, the Swedish Foreign Ministry shifted its stance on immigration. As a result, all Jews who fled to Sweden were granted asylum. In October 1943, after the Germans prepared to arrest the Danish Jews. More than 7,000 of them managed to escape to Sweden by way of an organised flight action by the Danish resistance movement, individuals and Swedish-Jewish organisations. The Swedish authorities had also, prior to the flight action, declared that the Danish Jews would be welcomed. In 1944, Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, issued thousands of protective papers in Budapest, the capital of Hungary, thereby protecting more than 4,500 Jews. In early 1945, Sweden was able to secure the release of some Scandinavian and other concentration camp inmates. Through the international UN-organization UNRRA and the Swedish Red Cross approximately 20,000 survivors were brought to Sweden in different phases. At the end of the war, the Red Cross organized transports of 15,500 concentration camp prisoners to Sweden, with the White Buses Operation. Most of the survivors came from Norway and Denmark; approximately 4,000 of them were Jews. After the German capitulation in May 1945, an additional 9,000, mostly Poles and Hungarians, from different concentration camps were transported by the so-called White Boats to Sweden.

In 1930, a census counted 471 Roma, who were families of the Kalderaša and had immigrated to Sweden in the second half of the 19th century. At the same time, several thousand “Resande” ("travellers") lived in Sweden, whose origin went back to Roma who had immigrated in the 16th century. Roma were subject to discrimination; for example, the Riksdag had issued an entry ban on foreign Roma in 1914, which remained in force until 1954. Discussions about Roma as an alleged “racial problem” intensified during the Second World War and led to a census of 453 Roma carried out as part of a police raid on May 31, 1943; 7,668 Resande were separately recorded by 1944. Further measures were not taken because the State Institute for Racial Biology opposed them. In 1945, a small number of Roma and Sinti survivors were admitted to the country as part of the “White Buses” and “White Ships” rescue operations.

The National Archives of Sweden hold all public records of the agencies of the central government. This institution supervises a network of regional archives as well as the Military Archives. In 1991, special archive legislation was passed to regulate the working of the National Archives. In addition to the state archives, there are collections in private archives and museums.

EHRI has identified the Swedish National Archives, and several regional and city or municipal archives as important Holocaust-relevant collections holders. The Jewish community archives can also be found in the National Archives. Furthermore, the Military Archives of Sweden, university archives and libraries, several museums and the Swedish labour movement’s Archives and Library hold sources pertaining to the Holocaust. A Swedish-language survey of Holocaust-related archives (see p. 243-276 in the following document: Sveriges museum om Förintelsen [https://www.regeringen.se/contentassets/03161ab08baa4461bb64b7ba1b25fd63/sveriges-museum-om-forintelsen-sou-202021.pdf]) has been integrated in Swedish and English into the EHRI Portal.

Outside of Sweden, EHRI has detected collections pertaining to Sweden and the Holocaust at the National Archives of Finland, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem and Beit Terezin. EHRI has also discovered sources relevant to Sweden at the Hungarian National Archives and at the National Archives of Latvia.