‘A Record of Infamy’: the use and abuse of the image of the Swedish Jewish response to the Holocaust

Abstract

This article deals with a subject that has been sensitive in the Jewish community in Sweden since the time of the Holocaust, namely the widespread image of the Stockholm Jewish Community as being negative towards letting Jewish refugees find a safe haven in Sweden during the Nazi persecution and mass murder. This image has previously been explained by the alleged ineffectivity of the Stockholm Jewish Community to aid the refugees and Swedish Jewry's failure to integrate them into the community. The present article, however, shows that this image was also a result of political differences between Jewish organizations, groups, and individuals, internationally as well as in Sweden. It was also due to an exaggerated belief in, and misconception of, the influence of the Swedish Jews on the Swedish administration of refugee aid, and resulted in personal feuds in which this negative image was accentuated. Furthermore, the image of the reluctant Swedish Jews has been reproduced and used by Swedish officials to avoid taking responsibility for the country's previous restrictive policy towards Jewish refugees. These accusations have cross-fertilized with the allegations from the inter-Jewish debate, further cementing the negative image of the Stockholm Jewish Community's responses to the Holocaust and the preceding persecutions.

Keywords:

• Jewish history
• Holocaust studies
• Sweden
• refugees
• the Stockholm Jewish Community

Notes

1 Lundgren, ‘Närkamp med det ohyggliga’.

2 Gottfarb, Den livsfarliga glömskan; Lomfors, Förlorad barndom – återvunnet liv.

3 Einhorn, Handelsresande i liv.

4 Persson, Escape from the Reich.

5 Koblik, The Stones Cry Out.

6 Ibid., 48–9.

7 Sune Persson, Escape from the Reich, 26.

8 Svante Hansson, Flykt och överlevnad, 132.

9 Lomfors, Förlorad barndom – återvunnet liv.

10 Hansson, Flykt och överlevnad, 407–30.

11 See Engel, Historians of the Jews and the Holocaust, 134–78; Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism; Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem; Ashheim, Hannah Arendt in Jerusalem; Israel Gutman, ‘HaAm ha Yehudi ratsah et atsmo: Girsat Hannah Arendt laSho'ah.’ Haaretz, 15 September 2000.

12 Aronson, Hitler, the Allies and the Jews.

13 Valentin, Judarna i Sverige, 167–72.

14 Bachner, ‘Judefrågan’.

15 Andersson, En jude är en jude är en jude …; Kvist Geverts, Ett främmande element i Nationen.

16 Kungl, Maj:ts proposition nr 198, 1927, 41; Kungl, Majt:s proposition nr 269,1937, 47.

17 Levine, From Indifference to Activism; Kvist Geverts, Ett främmande element i Nationen, 287–9.

18 RA, JF, Hjälpkommittén, E1 series, correspondence between the Stockholm Jewish Community and other Jewish organizations.

19 In total, not more than 1,350 Jews escaped the Reich through these quotas. See Köpniwsky, ‘Några ord och siffror om Mosaiska Församlingen’.

20 Valentin, Judarna i Sverige, 199.

21 Friedman, ‘The Power and/or Powerlessness of American Jews, 1939–1945’, passim.

22 Hansson, Flykt och överlevnad, 154.

23 Rudberg,‘Restriktivitet eller generositet?’; RA, JF, Hjälpkommittén, E1 vol. 13. Copy of a letter from Mauritz Grünberger to Marcus Ehrenpreis, Stockholm, 4 August 1939.

24 Thor, Hechalutz – en rörelse i tid och rum; Hansson, Flykt och överlevnad.

25 See Rudberg, ‘Restriktivitet eller generositet?’, 216; Lindberg, Svensk flyktingpolitik, 47.

26 See, for example, RA, JF, Hjälpkommittén E1: vol. 2. Copy of letter from Mauritz Grünberger of the Stockholm Jewish Community to Emil Glück, Stockholm, 26 February 1934; RA, JF, Hjälpkommitteen, E1: vol. 9. Copy of letter from Franz Arnheim to Mårten Henriques, Stockholm, 20 March 1940.

27 Hansson, Flykt och överlevnad, 90–2.

28 Meyer,‘The Fine Line between Responsible Action and Collaboration’; Gottlieb, Men of Vision, 27–9; Bauer, My Brother's Keeper, 115–8.

29 Persson, Escape from the Reich; see also Einhorn, Handelsresande i liv.

30 JDC, File #921, Hillel Storch to Moses Leavitt, 16 September 1942; see also Levine, From Indifference to Activism, 199–201.

31 Professor Paul Mintz was a member of the first Latvian government and became a professor of criminology at the University of Latvia. He directed the formulation of the Latvian penal code. He was also a member of the Jewish Agency and a fighter for the rights of the Jewish minority in Latvia. See Press, The Murder of Jews in Latvia, 9.

32 JDC, File #921, Hillel Storch to Moses Leavitt, 16 September 1942, see also Levine, From Indifference to Activism, 199–201.

33 Press, The Murder of Jews in Latvia, 9.

34 JDC, File #921, Paul Baerwald to Otto Schiff, 21 January 1943; Schiff passed the request to make ‘discreet enquires’ about Storch on to Salomon Adler-Rudel. See JDC, File # 921, Otto Schiff to Paul Baerwald, 11 March 1943.

35 JDC, File #921, Salomon Adler Rudel to Ruth Fellner, 24 May 1943.

36 Levine, From Indifference to Activism, 199–200; see also Einhorn, Handelsresande i liv.

37 Her trip was being planned already in March 1944. See JDC, File #921, Incoming cable from Joseph Schwartz (Lisbon) to Moses Leavitt, N.Y., Received 31 March 1944; Sune Persson incorrectly refers to Schwartz and Margolis of the JDC as [Stockholm] Jewish Community leaders. See Persson, Escape from the Reich, 30.

38 JDC, File # 921, Incoming cable, Margolis to Schwartz, received 1 November 1944.

39 JDC, File # 921, ‘Report from Laura Margolis’, November 1944.

40 This assumption is supported by the fact that Margolis, when referring to the Stockholm Jewish Community [Mosaiska Församlingen i Stockholm] as an organization, Margolis calls it ‘Forsamlingen’, and calls Rabbi Ehrenpreis ‘the dominate influence’, ‘at bottom of everything which is done or not done’.

41 Agrell, Skuggor runt Wallenberg, 170–1.

42 JDC, File # 921, Robert Pilpel in Lisbon to Moses Leavitt in New York (through American legation in Lisbon and the War Refugee Board in Washington), received 3 November 1944; JDC, File # 921, Joseph Schwartz to Moses Leavitt, ‘Incoming London’. Received 30 November 1944.

43 Hansson, Flykt och överlevnad, 265–7.

44 RA, JF, Huvudarkivet, F 1 c: 3, World Jewish Congress, Swedish Section, ‘Protokoll Nr. 4. fört vid möte hos professor Ehrenpreis 14/11 1944’.

45 RA, JF, Huvudarkivet, F 1 c: 3, World Jewish Congress, Swedish Section, Protocols # 1–6; see also Einhorn, Handelsresande i liv, 248, 249, 253, 254.

46 RA, JF, Huvudarkivet, F 1 c: 3, World Jewish Congress, Swedish Section, ‘Protokoll Nr. 4. fört vid möte hos professor Ehrenpreis 14/11 1944’; see also Einhorn, Handelsresande i liv, 251.

47 JDC, File #921, Robert Pilpel to Moses Leavitt, ‘Incoming cable, Lisbon’. Received 28 November 1944.

48 See RA, JF, Huvudarkivet, F1 c: 3, World Jewish Congress, Swedish Section, ‘Protokoll Nr. 4. fört vid möte hos professor Ehrenpreis 14/11 1944’; see also Einhorn, Handelsresande i liv, 264–5.

49 RA, JF, Huvudarkivet, F1 c: 3, World Jewish Congress, Swedish Section, ‘Protokoll Nr. 4. fört vid möte hos professor Ehrenpreis 14/11 1944’.

50 See also Einhorn, Handelsresande i liv, 264–5.

51 JDC, File #921, Glen Whistlers report (American Red Cross in Sweden) to Red Cross in Washington, 1 January 1945; a copy of the report was sent from J. W. Pehle (WRB) to Moses Leavitt (JDC), stamped ‘confidential’.

52 Byström, En broder gäst och parasit, 43.

53 FK 1945 nr 4, 11 (Möller); Valentin, Judarna i Sverige, 202; Hansson, Flykt och överlevnad, 73; Byström, En broder gäst och parasit, 117; Rudberg, ‘Restriktivitet eller generositet?’, 209.

54 Östling, Nazismens sensmoral, passim. See also Byström, En broder gäst och parasit.

55 Mörkenstam, ‘“Önskvärda och icke önskvärda befolkningselement”’.

56 Margosches, ‘The Secret Is Out’, Der Tog, 29 January 1946.

57 Rabbi Nurock was a religious Zionist leader, born in Tukums in the Czarist Russia, today's Latvia. Following the Soviet occupation, Nurock was arrested and exiled to Turkmenistan but released the following year. His wife and two sons stayed behind in Riga and died there during the Holocaust. He emigrated to the Mandate Palestine in 1947 and was later a Mizrachi member of Knesset and the Israel WJC executive. He had been one of the founders of the WJC and was a member of the World Council of HICEM. See Raider, Nahum Goldman, 210; Press, The Murder of the Jews in Latvia, 7, 9.

58 In the article, Nyström is incorrectly referred to as minister of the interior and ‘Minister Nyström’. Although born in 1903, Nyström is in the article described as a young man with almost boyish looks. It was a well known fact that Der Tog repeatedly published articles criticizing the predominately conservative/liberal Jewish organizations, like American Jewish Committee (AJC) and JDC. See Bauer, Out of the Ashes, 77.

59 Margosches, ‘The Secret Is Out’, Der Tog, 29 January 1946.

60 On 20 March 1946, for example, the Community received a letter from the Chilean Jewish Organization B'Ne Jisroel, containing a copy of an Article in Aufbau (Aufbau, Vol. III, No. 6, 1946), in which the accusations in Der Tog were mentioned. RA, JF, Huvudarkivet, F1c: 3, ‘Sehr geehrte Herren!’, Sociedad Cultural Israelita B'Ne Jisroel, Santiago de Chile, 20 March 1946; see also Hansson, Flykt och överlevnad, 360–4.

61 Hansson, Flykt och överlevnad, 360–4.

62 RA, JF, Huvudarkivet, F 1 c: 3, Marcus Ehrenpreis, ‘Telegram avsänt den 7 februari 1946’.

63 RA, JF, Huvudarkivet, F 1 c: 3, Marcus Ehrenpreis and Gunnar Josephson, Stockholm, 20 March 1946.

64 This account was, according to Ehrenpreis and Josephson, sent by Undersecretary Nyström to Josephson, who controlled its authenticity.

65 This was done in a communiqué to the official Swedish news agency, TT, and later in an article in the Stockholm Jewish Community's own bulletin. See Hansson, Flykt och överlevnad, 74.

66 Ehrenpreis’ and Josephson's letter was sent to the editors of Der Tog and to Jewish papers and periodicals including The Jewish Daily Forward, Aufbau, Judische Welt, Israelitisches Wochenblatt, as well as to Jewish organizations worldwide like HIAS, JDC, AJC, WJC, and B'na Jisraoel. As Margoshes’ accusations later re-surfaced in the Jewish press, Ehrenpreis and Josephson published another correction, this time in the Stockholm Jewish Community's own bulletin, Församlingsblad för Mosaiska Församlingen. In this article, they claim to have received understanding from the international Jewish organizations and that these were aware of the preconditions for Swedish Jewish relief work and that they valued the Community's work.

67 RA, JF, Huvudarkivet, F 1 c: 3, ‘Till Svenska sektionen av World Jewish Congress’, Uppsala, 12 March 1946.

68 Byström, En broder, gäst och parasit, 44; Westman also expressed his understanding of other politicians, like the minister of foreign affairs, Christian Günther's, anti-Semitic remarks. See Westman, Politiska anteckningar, 123, 109. Paul A. Levine has also commented on Westman's anti-Semitic rhetoric; see Levine, From Indifference to Activism, 97–8.

69 RA, JF, Huvudarkivet, F 1 c: 3, ‘Till Svenska sektionen av World Jewish Congress’, Uppsala, 12 March 1946.

70 RA, JF, F 1 c: 3, Copy of ‘To the Editor of der Tog’, Hugo Valentin, Undated.

71 Ibid.

72 ‘Sweden. Jewish Community Again Taken to Task’, The Jewish Agency Digest, 4 May 1947.

73 RA, JF, Huvudarkivet, F 1 c: 3, ‘To the Editor of the Jewish Agency's Digest’, Stockholm, 10 July 1947; ‘Swedish Jewry’, The Jewish Agency's Digest, No. 182, 3 August 1947; Josephson's letter was also published in The Jewish Chronicle on 15 August 1947.

74 Hansson, Flykt och överlevnad, 294.

75 Ibid., 295.

76 Aronson, Hitler, the Allies and the Jews.