Children…

Sweden’s Foreign Office
fights genocide with diplomacy
Even though the Nazis sought to kill every Jew in the
areas they controlled, their ability to do so was in some
ways limited. One difficulty were Jews who were citizens
of states with which Germany sought good relations,
allied states and neutrals such as Sweden.
After the ”Final Solution” was carried out in Norway,
some officials at Sweden’s Ministry for Foreign
Affairs realised that its citizenship could even protect
non-Swedish Jews.The Swedes understood that if these
Jews were kept off deportation transports, their chances
of survival greatly increased. Swedish diplomats began
virtually daily negotiations with both German and
local officials in Germany, Norway, France, Denmark
and, above all, Hungary.When Sweden clearly stated its
interest in the welfare of some individual Jews, or families,
the Germans would not treat these people as they
normally did. Sweden used what might be described
as “bureaucratic resistance”, demonstrating that even
government bureaucrats were to a certain extent able
to assist in trying to stop genocide.This method proved
particularly effective in Hungary, where Swedes and
diplomats from other neutral states and the International
Red Cross employed the method to help Jews,
often saving lives in the process.
The escape across Öresund
During the Holocaust, in 1943, something unique happened
in northern Europe. Even though Germany had occupied
Denmark since April 1940, Denmark’s government
refused to discriminate against the country’s nearly 8,000
Jewish citizens and refugees. After the unrest of summer
1943, German occupation authorities proclaimed a state
of emergency, and Danish government resigned. Hitler
decided that it was time to deal with Denmark’s Jews. Surprisingly,
senior German officials in Copenhagen leaked the
information that a full-scale operation was planned for the
beginning of October. Once the rumour began circulating
most Jews in Denmark managed to flee.
Assisted by Danish and Swedish fishermen, they fled to
Sweden across the Öresund Strait. Sweden’s official acceptance
of thousands of Jewish refugees in just a few days
marked a complete overturning of the country’s previously
extremely restrictive refugee policy. Most Danish police
refused to help arrest the Jews who remained, although 481
Jews were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration
camp. Because Danish officials never lost interest, most
deportees survived and returned to Denmark after the war.
This 1944 photograph shows some Danish-Jewish children
in a Save the Children Home in Malmö, Sweden.
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