Scandinavian Journal of History

ISSN: 0346-8755 (Print) 1502-7716 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/shis20

‘A Record of Infamy’: the use and abuse of the

image of the Swedish Jewish response to the
Holocaust

Pontus Rudberg

To cite this article: Pontus Rudberg (2011) ‘A Record of Infamy’: the use and abuse of the
image of the Swedish Jewish response to the Holocaust, Scandinavian Journal of History, 36:5,
536-554

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03468755.2011.625282

Published online: 14 Dec 2011.

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Pontus Rudberg

‘A RECORD OF INFAMY’

The use and abuse of the image of the Swedish

Jewish response to the Holocaust

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 admin-
istration 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

We don’t have any problems with anti-Semitism. So far. Neither do we want any
now. So, unfortunately, thank you for your visit.1
(Erkelius, Hotel Galicja, 60)

This passage in Swedish author Per Agne Erkelius’ critically acclaimed novel Hotel
Galicja, from 2010, refers to the Stockholm Jewish Community’s [Mosaiska församlin-
gen i Stockholm’s] chief Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis’s answer when a Jewish family that had
fled from the Nazis in Austria asked for help to get permission to stay in Sweden. This
passage was also cited in Sweden’s second largest daily newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet,
as well as in the country’s largest tabloid, Aftonbladet.1 The interpretation in the latter
was that the Stockholm Jewish Community simply did not want to see any refugees in

Scandinavian Journal of History Vol. 36, No. 5. December 2011, pp. 536–554
ISSN 0346-8755 print/ISSN 1502-7716 online © 2011 the Historical Associations
of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden
http://www.tandfonline.com http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03468755.2011.625282
 ‘A RECORD OF INFAMY’ 537

the country. With only a few exceptions,2 it is typical of the general image conveyed
in most of the more recent portrayals of Swedish Jewish responses to their brethren’s
plight during the Nazi era, in literature as well as in scholarly research. Books like
Erkelius’s novel and Lena Einhorn’s biography of the indefatigable Latvian Jewish busi-
nessman Gilel Storch,3 whose work contributed to saving the lives of thousands of Jews
and gentiles during the last years of the Second World War, reproduce an image of the
Stockholm Jewish Community as negative to the immigration of Jewish refugees. A sim-
ilar view is reproduced in scholarly works like Sune Persson’s book about the Swedish
Red Cross expedition,4 and historian Steven Koblik’s pioneering study of Sweden’s rela-
tions to the Holocaust.5 The Community’s leaders are accused of having been reluctant
to help ‘larger numbers’ of refugees to Sweden because of their alleged belief that it
would increase anti-Semitism within the country. They are also described as being overly
cautious when approaching the authorities in order to get refugees into the country.
Furthermore, the Stockholm Jewish Community has been accused of having arbitrarily
discriminated against poor Jews and Jews from Eastern Europe when recommending the
authorities on their applications for temporary residence permits and visa applications.6
Allegedly, the community leaders were assimilated to the point that some wanted ‘to
erase their Jewish background’, and felt no natural sympathy with Jews from Eastern
Europe.7
The Stockholm Jewish Community’s responses to the Nazi persecutions and mass
murder of their European brethren have been a sensitive subject for Swedish Jews since
the first post-Holocaust years. In 2000, the Stockholm Jewish Community therefore
decided to publish a white book on the subject. The research assignment was given to
political scientist and Jewish history scholar Svante Hansson. The book was published
in 2004 and is based on archival documents and interviews. His conclusion is that the
claim that the Stockholm Jewish Community had been more restrictive towards Jewish
refugees than its government is incorrect, although there were community officials that
were more inclined to take part in relief work abroad than to help refugees to the
country. The Community’s room for manoeuvre was limited by the official Swedish
policy and bureaucratic procedure, while its own policy is characterized by Hansson as
cautious.8 Hansson’s view of the Community policy is also supported by a previous study
of the Community’s efforts to accommodate Jewish refugee children.9 However, the
origins of, or an explanation for, the belief that Swedish Jews tried to hinder the immi-
gration of Jewish refugees is not explicitly given, although the book deals with several of
the components that were essential to its construction. This includes the failed integra-
tion of the Jewish refugees and the political and religious differences between Swedish
Jews and many of the refugees and Holocaust survivors that had come to Sweden.10
The purpose of this article is not to evaluate the rescue and relief efforts of the
Stockholm Jewish Community, but rather to contribute to the understanding of how the
negative image of this activity has been construed and thereby to shed light on how his-
torical events have formed the contemporary memory of the Swedish Jews’ reactions to
the Holocaust. What are the origins of the negative image of the Swedish Jewish response
to the Holocaust and the preceding persecution of the Jews in Europe? What historical
events have inspired these conceptions, and how has this negative image affected Swedish
collective memory of the Holocaust?
This article will address these questions by presenting an examination of the ori-
gins of these images, in an attempt to find the historical events and debates that have
538 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY

shaped them. In order to do so, the actions and the policies of the Stockholm Jewish
Community, as well as the discursive use of different narratives of these events, are
examined. This is primarily done through a study of historical documents emanating
from the Stockholm Jewish Community and its benefactor, the American Jewish Joint
Committee, with its headquarters in New York, as well as through an analysis of the
arguments and accusations presented in the post-Holocaust debate in the Jewish press
and related correspondence.
Pointing out the Jewish minorities and their organizations as responsible for the fail-
ure to save more lives, despite their respective nation’s indifference or their own alleged
complicity in the Holocaust, and the preceding persecutions leading up to it, is in no
way unique for Swedish authors and scholars. These questions have generated vigorous
debates in the field of Jewish history and Holocaust studies, and have been one of the
reasons for the division between the fields. As a result, scholars of the former field have
avoided the Holocaust as a topic of study, especially after Hannah Arendt’s implication
that the fate of the Jews was not exclusively in the hands of non-Jews, expressed in her
books Eichmann in Jerusalem and The Origins of Totalitarianism. Israel Gutman and other
historians further questioned Arendt’s statement that ‘if the Jewish people had really
been unorganized and leaderless [. . .] the total number of victims would hardly have
been between four and six million people’, adding the sarcastic remark: ‘the Jewish
people murdered itself’.11 However, the benefits of an interaction between the fields
of Jewish history and Holocaust studies have recently been stressed, and analyses like
Shlomo Aronson’s, with its kaleidoscopic method, show how fruitful the combination
can be in practice.12

Sweden, the Stockholm Jewish Community and the refugees

The overall policy of the Swedish state concerning the Jewish refugees was that there
should be no large-scale immigration of Jews to Sweden. As was the case in other coun-
tries, Jews were not considered political or ‘actual’ [egentliga] refugees, and only a few
refugees with relatives, friends, acquaintances already living in the country, or other
connections to Sweden could be admitted for temporary residence in the country.13 The
general discourse concerning Jews was dominated by the conception that they, because
they were Jews, constituted a problem.14 Swedish historian Lars M. Andersson has
shown that the anti-Semitic discourse in Sweden was hegemonic during the early 20th
century, while Karin Kvist Geverts has described the anti-Jewish sentiments in Swedish
society during the years of Nazi rule using a metaphor: the anti-Semitic background noise.15
The authorities responsible for immigration control carried out their work by
deciding on each refugee’s case individually, guided by legislation with the aim to
keep Jews and other ‘undesirable’ groups from settling in Sweden.16 Furthermore,
Holocaust historian Paul A. Levine has shown that the Swedish Ministry for Foreign
Affairs [Utrikesdepartementet] responded with indifference to the plight of the Jews until
the deportations of the Jews of neighbouring Norway started in 1942. Thus, it was
hardly surprising that the administrative authorities also discriminated against Jews in
practice.17
A limited concession to this restrictive policy was made through the four immi-
gration quotas that the Stockholm Jewish Community obtained after tough negotiations
with officials and politicians. The quotas were limited to a few hundred refugees that
were to be admitted with temporary residence permits while waiting to emigrate
 ‘A RECORD OF INFAMY’ 539

further. The selection of quota-refugees was primarily based on recommendations by

German, Austrian, and other Jewish organizations that were operating in Europe.18 The
Stockholm Jewish Community based their selection on these recommendations, taking
the requirements by the Swedish authorities into account, which in turn were based on
the immigration policy of the United States and other possible destinations for the trans-
migrants. Nevertheless, it was not unusual for the authorities to finally decide against
the recommendations from the Community.19
In 1933 the Stockholm Jewish Community had approximately 4,000 members, out
of a total of about 7,000 Jews in Sweden. The Community was struggling to find fund-
ing for its relief work, and, since the late 1930s, it was dependent on contributions
from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and other international
relief organizations.20 Similar to other Diaspora kehillot in the modern world, the Jewish
minority in Sweden had functioned as a communal autonomy in the corporate state
and had, during the 19th century, moved from being a closed corporation, isolated and
strictly regulated (although with some autonomy within the strict rules imposed on it
by the State), to a more open and secular community. However, some remnants of the
previous state, such as the fact that the Jews were held responsible for foreign Jews,
survived well into the 20th century.
Saul S. Friedman has characterized American Jewry as weak, in terms of power.21
Considering the size of the Swedish Jewish minority, its comparably small financial
assets, and the near total absence of Jews in Swedish politics on the national level, one
must conclude that Swedish Jewry were even weaker than their American counterparts.
Nevertheless, as Friedman points out, there are a number of actions that even a weak
group can make in order to exercise power. This leads to the question: what policy
on immigration of refugee Jews did the Stockholm Jewish Community have and what
actions did it take to aid its brethren?

Swedish Jewish actions in response to the plight of the Jews under

the Nazis
The Stockholm Jewish Community’s policy on refugees has been called cautious, imply-
ing the possibility that more lives could have been saved if a more aggressive approach
had been adopted.22
However, the Stockholm Jewish Community did in fact recommend to the author-
ities to admit more applications from Jewish refugees for residence permits (68%)
than the authorities finally issued (only 55%). Furthermore, the Stockholm Jewish
Community negotiated to introduce new quotas, as well as trying to raise the exist-
ing quotas. Correspondence between officials of the Community reveal that in the
1930s, when these quotas were most relevant, the Community believed they had
reached the limit of how many Jews the authorities would let into the country.23 The
Stockholm Jewish Community had well established connections and sources of infor-
mation within the administrative authorities. For example, the Community’s chairman,
Gunnar Josephson, was married to the sister of the state secretary of the Ministry for
Foreign Affairs, and the Community’s administrative director, Mauritz Grünberger,
corresponded informally with John Setterwall, at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
and Bureau Director Kurt Bergström, at the National Board of Health and Welfare.
Consequently, the Swedish Jewish leaders believed that they knew how far they could go
in negotiations with reluctant authorities and politicians.
540 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY

As previous research has shown, the Stockholm Jewish Community sought to con-
trol most of the contact between Swedish Jews and the state authorities on issues
concerning Jewish refugees.24 However, this was partly due to the fact that the state
preferred to deal with only one organization concerning the Jewish refugees.25 Also,
a more favourable response from the authorities was expected when an application was
handed in by the Community, rather than by other Jewish organizations.26 Furthermore,
the Stockholm Community was also the organization that had the most well-established
contacts with organizations like HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) and JDC in
America.
This near monopoly on dealing with the authorities and the international relief
organizations was one key factor in the creation of the image of the Stockholm Jewish
Community being negative to immigration, when other agents sought access to these
channels.
The policy of the Stockholm Jewish Community, like those of their British and
American counterparts, was also made in close cooperation with the German Jewish
organizations,27 whose policy during the 1930s was one of controlled and qualified
emigration, preferably to Palestine.28 This policy was less the result of neglect or indif-
ference than a realistic assessment of their respective governments’ willingness to absorb
Jews. Thus, the policy of the Stockholm Jewish Community did not differ much from
the ones of its counterparts in other bystander nations.
Therefore, the restrictiveness of the Swedish policy must be understood as a result
of the policymakers within the Swedish government and its administrative authori-
ties, not of the small and dependent Jewish minority. The actions of the Stockholm
Jewish Community are not a sufficient explanation for the community’s image as neg-
ative towards immigration. The explanation must also be sought in how the policies
and actions of the Community have been perceived and portrayed, as well as by what
functions this image could serve in other contexts.

Misconceptions, struggle for influence, and personal feuds

In 1940, the prominent businessman, Gilel Storch, came from Riga to Sweden as a
refugee. He later initiated several aid and rescue schemes which saved thousands of lives.
The most famous of these is the Swedish Red Cross action, in which thousands of sur-
vivors were transported to safety in Sweden during the last weeks before, and after,
liberation in 1945.29
Storch personally expressed a deep mistrust for the Stockholm Jewish Community.
In 1942, possibly misinformed, he wrote to the JDC, declaring that ‘only people, who
have relatives here, can get visas’, and claiming that each person was required to have
a large amount of money as a guarantee. He also maintained that this was ‘nothing
else than the Mosaiska Församlingen’s [the Stockholm Jewish Community’s] work’.30
However, as mentioned before, these limitations were imposed by the Swedish author-
ities, and based on their policy that the refugees should match the requirements for
transmigration, in most cases to the United States. Storch also blamed the Community
for the death of his friend, Professor Paul Mintz,31 in 1940, when the Russians invaded
Riga, and for not helping a group of Latvian and Lithuanian Jews with certificates for
immigration to Palestine to get their transit visas through Sweden.32 This was, how-
ever, while the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was still in effect and the Stockholm Jewish
Community gave priority to Jews from territories controlled by the Nazis. Therefore,
 ‘A RECORD OF INFAMY’ 541

it is not surprising that the Stockholm Community declined. However, in September

1942, when Storch wrote his letter, it was evident that his plan most likely would have
saved these people. Professor Mintz was, like many other Jews, arrested by the NKVD
in 1941 and deported to Siberia, where he died the same winter.33
The JDC’s Chairman in New York, Paul Baerwald, read the letter and wrote to Otto
Schiff of the Jewish Refugees Committee in London to make inquires about Storch.34
The request was passed on to a fellow relief activist in England, Salomon Adler-
Rudel, who reported that Storch was eager to help, but difficult to cooperate with.
According to Adler-Rudel, Storch’s complaints against the attitude of the Stockholm
Jewish Community were ‘out of date’, and Storch, ‘with the mentality of an Eastern
European Jew and being worried about the fate of his people’, tried to attract the interest
of organizations abroad.35 Storch had previously tried to influence the Swedish authori-
ties and the Swedish Jewish Community. However, as was the case with other refugees
who were not yet Swedish citizens, he was not allowed to join the Community, and was,
consequently, shut out from its decision-making. He then, instead, devoted his work
to the World Jewish Congress (WJC), through which he successfully carried out relief
work and negotiated to rescue lives.36

Relief, politics and power

In late 1944, Joseph Schwartz, of the JDC in London, sent their agent, Laura Margolis,
to Sweden to report on how the relief work was carried out and how the Stockholm
Jewish Community used the large sums of money it received from the American
organization.37 Margolis reported that the process was slow and complicated due to
the numerous sources of information and the many organizations and governments
involved.38
Judging by her reports, Margolis herself stands out as a rather complex person,
often inconsistent and at times self-contradictory. She reported that the officials of the
Stockholm Community were ‘very adequate for handling the problem’. At the same
time she complained that there was no one really in charge, which resulted in conflicts
and an unfriendly ‘working relationship’.39 It is possible the organization of the Swedish
relief work confused Margolis. What she describes as differences and lack of leadership
within the ‘Community’ probably refers to the Jewish population in Stockholm as a
whole (including refugees and other organizations like the Swedish Section of the WJC),
rather than the official Stockholm Jewish Community.40 It is also probable that some
of her informants were immigrants, who, like Storch, were critical of the Stockholm
Jewish Community. Other critical sources were Swedish government officials and the
Office of Strategic Services (OSS) agent and representative of the War Refugee Board
in Stockholm, Iver Olsen, whom Margolis met during her stay in Stockholm. The War
Refugee Board’s (WRB) representation in Stockholm had previously been criticized for
not having saved any Jews, and because of that they were more interested in actions that
would benefit the US intelligence activities.41
Margolis summarized her impressions, writing that, although many refugees dis-
liked the Stockholm Community because of ‘their previous attitude’, it was now ‘doing a
great job’ and that it certainly no longer ‘affected the picture’, since there were, accord-
ing to her, ‘no possibilities for bringing people to Sweden’. The somewhat negative view
of the Stockholm Community, reflected in Margolis’ reports, seems to gradually have
changed during her stay in Stockholm to a more positive one. By the end of November
542 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY

1944, she thought that the organization of the relief work was good enough for her to
be able to leave Sweden.42
However, in the autumn of 1944, her problems in Sweden had only just begun,
as she became involved in the operation of sending packages to Jews inside Nazi
concentration camps. Therefore she prolonged her stay in Stockholm. Since 1940, a
relief committee, led by Chief Rabbi Ehrenpreis and loosely tied to the Stockholm
Jewish Community, was devoted to aiding the Jews in Poland (and, from 1942, to
help European Jews in general). They had been sending packages containing food from
Portugal to Poland, but in the summer of 1944 these shipments completely ceased –
ironically due to the Allied invasion.43 This is when Gilel Storch was contacted by a
Dr Hellman of the WJC in Buenos Aires about the possibilities of sending food parcels
from Sweden.44
In July 1944, Gilel Storch applied to the Swedish authorities for a license to send
20,000 parcels containing 100,000 kilos of foodstuffs out of the country. This sum was
later doubled. Storch personally guaranteed US$25,000 and requested that the WJC
paid for the rest. But the WJC was dilatory in sending him the money.45
Although initially positive to Storch’s initiative – Margolis gave him a list of 17,000
names of potential package recipients – her image of Storch seems to have changed as
time passed.46 The Stockholm Jewish Community, Ehrenpreis relief committee, and
the Swedish Section of the WJC co-operated and started to ship the food packages to
prisoners, initially in Bergen-Belsen and Theresienstadt.
Margolis advised Ehrenpreis, however, not to organize relief work through the
WJC. In the view of the JDC, the congress should only be concerned with political
issues, not with relief. Ehrenpreis agreed and claimed that the food parcel project had
started without his knowledge. According to Margolis, Ehrenpreis also ‘understood’ the
JDC’s ‘inability’ to provide funds for the parcel project while it was run by the WJC.
She did not think that the WJC would come up with the money, and that Storch would
turn to JDC for financial help instead. Her intention was to give him a negative response
because she wanted the Stockholm Jewish Community to take over the whole project,
since the JDC leadership preferred that the WJC not be involved in relief work, and
wanted to control the project themselves through Ehrenpreis. This also meant shutting
out Gilel Storch, who Margolis by then had difficulties cooperating with.47 Storch com-
plained that Margolis intrigued against him, while the Stockholm Jewish Community’s
officials complained that Storch was pushing them around.48 Furthermore, in a meeting
of the Swedish Section of the WJC in October 1944, Storch, to Chairman Ehrenpreis’
surprise, presented a report on the previous relief efforts made by the Stockholm Jewish
Community. Ehrenpreis then called the report tactlessly written, only dealing with fail-
ures, and giving the impression that the WJC alone had solved the ‘Hungarian question’.
Storch responded by declaring his readiness to withdraw from his work. In the next
meeting, however, the Swedish Section of the WJC decided to write to Storch, explain-
ing that he was much needed and that they wanted him to continue his work within the
section.49
In December, when the WJC were still stalling the transfer of money to Storch,
Margolis declared that the JDC was willing to finance the package shipment on the con-
dition that the WJC withdrew from the operation. The Stockholm Community leaders
had the same view as the JDC on what the main purposes of the WJC should be, and
agreed with Margolis. Storch, who, in contrast to Ehrenpreis, wanted the WJC also
 ‘A RECORD OF INFAMY’ 543

to be involved in relief and rescue work, sent a cable explaining Ehrenpreis’ position
to the Congress leaders Stephen S. Wise and Nahum Goldman. The latter then cabled
Storch back, telling him to immediately open a new office and start undertaking relief
and rehabilitation work, using the cable address RELICO. RELICO was the acronym of
another relief organization, Relief Committee for the War-stricken Jewish Population,
established in Geneva by Dr Abraham Silberstein and tied to the WJC and other
organizations, through which it directed its aid.50 Finally, Storch got his funding from
the WJC and sent the remaining packages from his new organization, while Margolis
appointed a Swede, Ragnar Gottfarb, as the JDC representative in Sweden, and left him
with US$75,000 to be used in a new parcel programme once Storch’s had run out of
money.51
In March 1945, Margolis left Sweden and reported that the Community was ‘doing
a satisfactory job’. Her reports remain important evidence as to how the JDC sought
to influence Ehrenpreis and the Stockholm Jewish Community to follow JDC policy
that all relief projects should go through them and that the WJC should be concerned
with politics only. The reports also show that the Community agreed to this without
objection.
It is clear that the struggle between different Jewish organizations on the inter-
national level was reflected in their work in Sweden. Those who were critical of the
established form of relief work in Sweden gained support from those who were critical
of the established forms of philanthropic relief internationally. Unfortunately, the relief
and rescue activities had become a political issue and, as we shall see, the narratives of
these efforts became effective political tools.

Swedish politicians and the post-war need for an excuse

In a debate in the Swedish parliament in January 1945, Gustav Möller, the Minister of
Health and Social Affairs, and, as such, one of the primarily responsible politicians for
the country’s policy towards Jewish refugees,52 admitted that the Swedish policy on
letting Jewish refugees into the country had been restrictive. He excused the restrictive
policy with the allegation that ‘the Swedish Government was at least as generous in
letting the Jews into this country as the Jewish community in Stockholm’.53 As we shall
see, this allegation was repeated by his undersecretary, Per Nyström.
The fact that the allegations came from Möller, and that they came in 1945, is of
course no coincidence. In 1945, an ideological shift from a small-state realism, char-
acterized by a policy of appeasement towards Nazi-Germany and ‘Nordic thought’, to
a modern, democratic, and progressive welfare state took place.54 The discourse on
immigration in Sweden before 1945 was dominated by a nationalistic ideal, succeeded
by a new democratic ideal, where the nationalistic ideal was internalized and made less
explicit.55 The restrictive policy of the 1930s no longer fit the new Swedish self-image.
Möller used the allegation as an excuse for indifference – if the Jews themselves did not
want to help Jewish refugees, why should ‘we’ try to help them? Arguing that the Jewish
reluctance was ‘widely known’, he was indirectly referring to the inter-Jewish critique,
using it as support for his claim that the Jews were reluctant to help their brethren to
come to Sweden. Möller’s allegation was another source that supported the critics of the
Community, and was soon used as an argument in the inter-Jewish discursive struggle
for power and personal feuds.
544 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY

‘Our Jewish Quislings’

‘The secret is out. Our Jewish Quislings. A record of Infamy. A true Swedish patriot
speaks’.56 These were the headlines of an article in the American Jewish daily paper
Der Tog [The Day], on 29 January 1946. In the article, Editor Dr Margoshes described
a call made by himself, accompanied by Storch, as well as a person referred to with
the last name Segal (possibly American Jewish labour Zionist leader, Louis Segal) and
Rabbi Mordechai Nurock,57 to Per Nyström, the above-mentioned undersecretary of
social affairs, after the war.58 They were all devoted Zionists and claimed to be repre-
senting ‘World Jewry’ as they delivered speeches of gratitude and made suggestions ‘for
the relief of Jewish sufferers by temporary admission to Sweden’. Nyström is said to
have been smiling while explaining that Jews could be admitted if they would be stay-
ing for only a ‘reasonable time’ while waiting for transmigrating to another country.
But when asked about the Swedish public opinion, his smile faded and his face turned
red: ‘Swedish public opinion is now very friendly to Jewish immigration as it has always
been, but the trouble is with the Swedish Jews. They want no immigration, and that’s
the rub’. Nyström also claimed that the Stockholm Jewish Community had ‘warned’ the
government ‘against encouraging Jewish immigration’, because they believed this could
increase anti-Semitism. The group (except Storch, who reportedly remained calm) was
baffled by this, and Nurock declared that he held the character and traditions of freedom
and culture of the Swedes in a higher esteem than the Stockholm Jewish Community.
Undersecretary Nyström reportedly enjoyed Nurock’s reaction ‘hugely’ while ‘laughing
heartily, striking his thigh’.59
As the group left the building, Storch showed Margoshes a printed copy of the
debate in the Swedish Parliament (Riksdagen), where the above-mentioned minister,
Gustav Möller, admitted that Sweden had declared that ‘the Swedish Government was
at least as generous in letting the Jews into this country as the Jewish community
in Stockholm’. The charges against the Stockholm Jewish Community in Margoshes’
article quickly spread in the Jewish press around the world.60
Furthermore, these charges resurfaced in the Jewish press internationally in
1947, when an orthodox rabbi, Pinchas Wohlgelernter, accused the Stockholm Jewish
Community of, amongst other things, having hindered 100,000 Jewish children from
coming to Sweden. This and other orthodox critique, which in many ways was analogous
to the aforementioned, is described by Svante Hansson in his ‘white book’.61

‘“Die Gemeinde ist schuld”-Psychose’

Ehrenpreis denied that the community had ever requested the government to ‘disallow
immigration’ to Sweden, and that he had ‘received written confirmation’ from Nyström
that the Stockholm Jewish Community ‘never requested Swedish authorities to prevent
or obstruct immigration of Jewish refugees’.62
According to a letter of refutation, written by Ehrenpreis and Josephson, Nyström
had declared that the Stockholm Jewish Community had ‘not exercised pressure of
any kind on the Swedish government with the aim of impeding or counteracting [the
immigration] of Polish or other Jewish refugees to Sweden’.63 Nyström claimed to be
misunderstood. What he had wanted to say was that ‘certain Swedish Jewish circles’, not
the Stockholm Community as such, had ‘felt disinclined’ towards Jewish immigration,
because they feared the risk of increasing anti-Semitism.64 It is, however, unclear of
 ‘A RECORD OF INFAMY’ 545

whom these ‘certain Jewish circles’ consisted. When pressured about the country’s
previous attitude towards Jewish refugees, Nyström apparently used the same excuse
as Foreign Minister Möller when he was pressured in parliament. In fact, it is most
likely that Nyström was influenced by Möller’s apologetic speech.
Ehrenpreis and Josephson called Minister Möller’s statement in parliament incor-
rect and misleading, and pointed to their previous public refutation.65 Again, they
most emphatically denied that the Community had wanted to impede the rescue of
any European Jews to Sweden. They believed that the Swedish government’s restrictive
policy on immigration was a result of a public opinion that had been ‘distinctly hostile
towards immigration’. The Swedish Jews had to ‘adhere to the policy and regulations
of the Swedish authorities’, but they did not let fear of abetting anti-Semitism dominate
their policy.66 Consequently, the two Community leaders admitted to having its refugee
policy adapted to the government’s restrictive policy. However, it must be emphasized
that this adaptation is not the same thing as trying to hinder immigration.
As a Chairman of the Swedish section of the WJC, historian Hugo Valentin
requested permission from the section to sign Ehrenpreis and Josephson’s above-
mentioned letter. His request met limited understanding, since many of the WJC
members shared Margoshes’ views. Valentin described these views as being founded on
invalid slander, and stated that the precondition of a fruitful cooperation between polit-
ical opponents is a need for the parties to not ‘put each other’s honour into question’.
He concluded that he could no longer remain chairman and resigned from his post.67
In another letter, Valentin claimed that it was the Swedish authorities that had ini-
tially stated that the Swedish Jews were more restrictive to immigration, rather than the
authorities themselves. According to Valentin, this Quatsch was first uttered by the pre-
vious minister of justice, the late K. G. Westman, whose political views, Valentin wrote,
resembled that of French politician Pierre Laval (who led the government established in
Vichy to collaborate with Germany during the German occupation of France, and was
ultimately executed as a traitor to his country).
Valentin’s conclusion is not unfounded, considering other clearly anti-Semitic
remarks made by the minister in his diary. In his political diary, which has been published
for the period 1939–1943, Westman explained Editor Torgny Segerstedt’s critique of
Sweden’s policy towards Nazi Germany by saying that Segerstedt’s ‘Jewish mistress has
forced his soul out and replaced it with a Jewish soul’. He was also one of the architects
of Swedish immigration legislation during the period and, as a minister of justice, he
was responsible for its application. According to Valentin, Foreign Minister Möller later
repeated Westman’s words in the debate referred to above.68
In Valentin’s opinion, this sort of accusation might have been in order if it were
true, but, when asked for the names of the Swedish Jews who were allegedly restric-
tive towards Jewish immigration, ‘they become embarrassed and squirm’. He also
compared the accusations to the functions of anti-Semitism and the old saying: ‘ein
Jude ist ein Betrüger, also sind die Juden Betrüger’, describing them as a ‘“Die Gemeinde ist
schuld”-Psychose’ – closely related to the ‘“Der Jude ist schuld ”-Psychose’.69
In another furious letter to the above-mentioned editor of Der Tog, Margoshes,
Valentin shared his views on the political differences among the Jews in Sweden, saying
that, as a leading Zionist, he naturally held views ‘ideologically different’ from those of
the Stockholm Jewish Community, whose leading men he regarded as having the same
views as the largely non-Zionist American Jewish Committee. Nevertheless, referring
546 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY

to his personal knowledge of the Stockholm Jewish Community’s leaders, he stated that
Margoshes’ accusations were false and had originated from vague ‘rumours circulated
even in official circles’.70
Again, pointing to the functions of anti-Semitism, Valentin claimed that these
rumours had almost exclusively aroused sympathies among the newly-arrived refugees,
not acquainted with the Community leaders. The Swedish Jews were seen as strangers
in the eyes of the refugees, and the ‘stranger’ is usually chosen as scapegoat. Valentin
rhetorically asked: ‘should not us Jews, who are the foremost scapegoats of mankind,
take particular care not to succumb to a psychosis of this kind?”71
In April 1947, Mordechai Nurock condemned the Stockholm Jewish Community
when he was discussing the aforementioned 50 families (including those of historian
Simon Dubnov and himself) that had tried to escape Riga when the Russians occupied
Latvia. This time he revealed his sources of information. According to Nurock, Gilel
Storch, who went to Stockholm to obtain their visas, had called Chairman Gunnar
Josephson to get the guarantees that were required by the government. Allegedly
Josephson’s reply to Storch ‘sealed the fate’ of Professor Dubnov and the 50 families:
‘we do not wish foreign Jews to come to Sweden, and we can give no guarantees for
them’. Nurock also repeated the accusations, saying that the Community had tried to
obstruct the immigration of Jewish refugees because of fear of anti-Semitism.72
Again, in a letter this time to the Editor of the Jewish Agency’s Digest, Josephson wrote
that it was ‘completely out of the question’ that he had made ‘any such reply’. He also
wrote that Nurock possibly had been misinformed by ‘his informant [Storch] against his
better knowledge’, and that these accusations were part of an ‘organised campaign of lies
directed against Swedish Jews’. Josephson also declared that the Community applied for
a visa for Dubnov on 18 July 1940, even before Storch’s visit to Sweden, and that the
visa was granted, but for unknown reasons never used.73

Conclusions
Storch and the Stockholm Jewish Community never managed to bridge their differences.
On the 27 February 1947, the Community’s relief committee unanimously decided
to discontinue all cooperation with Gilel Storch. This also had to do with Storch’s
actions, telling the vice chairman of the Jewish Agency that the Stockholm Jewish
Community had been opposed to aid for Jewish refugees.74 Svante Hansson has pre-
viously pointed out the competition for influence and power as an explanation for the
differences between Storch and the Swedish Jewish establishment. Also, he pointed to
the failure of the Swedish Jews to integrate the refugees into their community and the
mutual estrangement between the Swedish Jews and, foremost, eastern European Jewish
refugees.75 However, as we have seen, political disputes, and not least personal feuds,
unfortunately also kept the animosity alive and influenced the way in which the Swedish
Jewish response to the Nazi atrocities is perceived. Furthermore, accusations coming
from Swedish non-Jewish politicians and officials contributed to the construction of the
negative image of Swedish Jewish refugee aid.
It is obvious, however, that Storch used arguments in his critique of the Stockholm
Jewish Community that emanated from the Swedish cabinet; evidently from the min-
istries headed by Möller and Nyström, and possibly also originating from the office of the
Ministry of Justice, led by K. G. Westman. Westman was infamous for his anti-Semitic
 ‘A RECORD OF INFAMY’ 547

rhetoric and, as Kvist Geverts has shown, the policies and actions of Swedish adminis-
tration concerning Jewish refugees were strongly influenced by anti-Semitism. Möller
and Nyström used the claim that the Swedish Jews were more restrictive than the gov-
ernment as an excuse for their previous policy: if the Jews themselves were opposed to
letting other Jews in, how could anyone blame the Swedish government for acting in the
same manner? This apologetic rhetoric follows the same logic as that of the Holocaust-
revisionists, saying that the Jews were accomplices in their own destruction, because of
the collaboration of the Judenräten in the Jewish ghettos or the kapos in the concentration
camps. However, one must separate these claims from the use of the same type of claims
in the inter-Jewish debate.
With the authority of their offices and an assembly indifferent to the inter-Jewish
debate, allegations made by non-Jewish politicians and officials naturally influenced
those already suspicious or critical of the Community. The accusations levelled by
Swedish officials ‘supported’ rumours as well as accusations, like the one that the
Stockholm Jewish Community had tried to hinder immigration of Jewish refugees.
Many disapproved of the Stockholm Community’s near monopoly in dealing with the
authorities. Furthermore, if people were made to believe that the strict requirements
for immigration originated from the Swedish Jewish leaders, and not from the Swedish
State, this naturally created a breeding ground for animosity and critique towards the
Stockholm Jewish Community and the Swedish Jewish establishment in charge of the
organization.
Some, like Gilel Storch, also believed that the strategy of the Jewish Community –
to discretely negotiate with the authorities – was ineffective, and sought access to the
Community’s channels to exercize influence. Considering the desperate situation, as the
murder of European Jewry was going on every day, and the above mentioned misinfor-
mation, this struggle for influence is hardly surprising. Also, more personal difficulties
seem to have further sharpened the rhetoric and increased the divisions between the
Jewish groups.
The narrative, describing a restrictive Jewish Community opposed to aiding the
victims of the Holocaust, also became a tool in the struggle for power and political and
religious self-definition of Swedish Jewry in the post-Holocaust years. This narrative
further damaged the relations between different Jewish groups in Sweden and was cross-
fertilized with the non-Jewish apologetic accusations, synchronically confirming each
other’s accusations.
After the war Sweden went through an ideological shift, from a ‘realistic’, self-
preserving perspective, characterized by ‘Nordicism’, to one that embraced democratic
ideals and international solidarity. The narrative of the restrictive Swedish Jews fitted
well into this new Swedish self-image. While the images of the Swedish people saving
Danish Jewry from destruction in the Autumn of 1943 and the rescue efforts of Raoul
Wallenberg and Count Bernadotte during 1944 and 1945 were integrated as part of the
national memory of Swedish official actions during the Holocaust, the Swedish restric-
tive policy of indifference to the fate of the Jews of the previous years could be excused
by the conduct of the Swedish Jews.
Just as when discussing the Judenräten, the conduct of the Reichsvereinigung der
Deutschen Juden, and other Jewish institutions that were forced to cooperate with the
Nazis, factors such as room for manoeuvre and the force of the coercive power must be
taken into account. Although the foremost responsibility for the murders of the Jews
548 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY

lay on the perpetrators, had it not been for the rest of the world shutting the doors and
forming parts of the multiple trap,76 the numbers of the victims of the Holocaust could
perhaps have been smaller. It is also probable that the Stockholm Jewish Community
could have saved more lives if they had acted differently, or if they had had a different
discursive understanding. However, the Swedish Jews were still a subordinated minority
with restricted manoeuvring space, tied to and dependent on the Swedish government.
The Jewish people did not murder itself, and neither was it the Jews that shut the doors
to rescue in their own faces. So why has the image of the Stockholm Jewish Community
as overly cautious and reluctant to aid its brethren persisted?
The symbolic and emotional force of the Holocaust naturally made the image of
the Swedish Jews as reluctant to save more Jews from the Holocaust a powerful ideo-
logical tool. Depending on the critic’s perspective, challenging the establishment was,
and still is, an effective way to challenge Reform Judaism, Secularism, or non-Zionist
ideals. Over the years, the apologetic excuses and allegations of the Swedish state and
the claims made by Jewish anti-establishment groups have cross-fertilized each other by
‘confirming’ each other’s biased claims and accusations. As we have seen, science and
literature have more often accepted these as ‘truths’, rather than asking questions.

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’.
 ‘A RECORD OF INFAMY’ 549

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 flyktingpoli-
tik, 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.
550 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY

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 över-
levnad, 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’.
 ‘A RECORD OF INFAMY’ 551

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 precondi-
tions 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.

References
Archives
Riksarkivet [National Archives Sweden] (RA)
Judiska (Mosaiska) Församlingen i Stockholms Arkiv (JF)
Huvudarkivet
F 1 c. Dossierlagda handlingar, avslutade eller icke aktuella ärenden
Hjälpkommittén
E 1. Allmän korrespondens
552 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives (JDC), New York City File
#921, Sweden

Periodicals
Aftonbladet
Aufbau
Församlingsblad för Mosaiska Församlingen
Haaretz
The Jewish Agency’s Digest
The Jewish Chronicle
Svenska Dagbladet
Der Tog

Public documents
Kungl, Maj:ts proposition, nr 198, 1927.
Kungl, Majt:s proposition, nr 269, 1937.
Riksdagstrycket, Första kammaren (FK), 1945, nr 4.

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Pontus Rudberg (b. 1977) is, since 2007, a Ph.D. student at the Department of History,
Uppsala University. His ongoing Ph.D. project deals with Swedish Jewry’s responses to
the Nazi politics against the Jews, 1933–1945. Rudberg was a Research Affiliate with
the Skirball Department for Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University in 2010,
and is currently employed as a researcher by the Army Museum in Stockholm, Sweden.
Address: Department of History, Box 628, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. [email:
pontus.rudberg@hist.uu.se]