Children…

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Sweden and the refugee crisis of 1938
Refugees who changed Sweden
Most Jews who applied for, and were granted, asylum in Sweden
before the war came from Central Europe. The adults were often
well-educated and had held prominent positions in their former
countries. They could offer Sweden much in the fields of busi
ness, medicine, literature, art and music. Of the 3,000 or so
refugees admitted into Sweden, many contributed enormously.
These included Nelly Sachs, author and later Nobel Prize laure
ate, the journalist and author Stefan Szende, and entrepreneur
”We have not been particularly generous
with residence permits for foreigners
who have applied for them in order to
escape terror and persecution. Those who
accuse the National Board of Health and
Welfare of being too liberal in this respect
may, when all is said and done, have less
reason to criticise than those who claim
that the Board has pursued too restrictive
a policy.”
SIGFRID HANSSON, NATIONAL HEALTH AND
WELFARE BOARD DIRECTOR, ISSUING AGENCY
FOR RESIDENCE PERMITS, FEBRUARY 1939
Herbert Felix. Felix came to Sweden in 1938 and achieved rapid
success in the food industry. After the war, he created his wellknown
brand Felix. His products, ranging from relish to tomato
ketchup, remain household names. Other refugees were only
children when they arrived, and contributed to post-war Sweden.
These included, among others, Harry Schein, Georg Riedel,
Joachim Israel and Erwin Leiser.
As soon as the Nazis came to power in 1933, Jews began
leaving Germany. Most countries, Sweden included,
were reluctant to accept more than a handful. When
Germany annexed Austria in 1938, the European “refugee
crisis” was aggravated, as tens of thousands of Jews
tried to leave the Third Reich. As a result of an appeal
from American president Franklin Roosevelt, representatives
of 32 governments met in Évian, France, in
July 1938 for a ten-day conference to discuss the crisis.
The poorly planned conference was a humanitarian
disaster. Government upon government expressed
their regret for the Jewish plight, while simultaneously
saying they could not help.The Swedish chief delegate,
Gösta Engzell from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
explained that Sweden had very limited possibilities to
assist, and that the “burden” created by Europe’s Jewish
“problem”, could only be borne if it was “extended to
countries outside Europe”. Of all the large and small
nations represented in Évian, only the tiny Dominican
Republic in the Caribbean offered to receive 10,000
Jews for a limited period of time. For many European
Jews the failed conference effectively meant a death
sentence. For Hitler and Nazi Germany, it served as
a propaganda tool. The Nazis mocked a world which
criticised Germany for its “Jewish policy”, while refusing
to open its doors to Jewish refugees.The Évian fiasco
is commonly considered to be the final demise of the
League of Nations.
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