Abstract

In the last weeks of the Second World War and the following months Sweden played a crucial role in saving more than 30.000 non-Jewish and Jewish prisoners from German concentration camps, carrying them with the White Buses to Sweden. One of the mayor reasons for this action was to regain the positive relations to the Allied powers which had been seriously damaged during the first years of the war. The Jewish group counted 11-12.000 persons, mostly young women. An analysis of the treatment of these Jewish displaced persons by the Swedish authorities and the Jewish community in Stockholm from 1945 to 1950 shows that the authorities conducted their policy according to national interests and that the Jewish community was characterized by caution to keep the benevolence of the authorities. It was not considered a Swedish interest that they would stay, but after a few months the authorities, influenced among others by the Jewish Community, realized that forced repatriation was neither feasible out of humanitarian nor international political considerations. There were no restrictions for giving them medical help, but the treatment of these persons did not pay much attention to their psychic condition. One example is the use of their working power soon after their arrival in Sweden. Together with other displaced persons and refugees they became an important working power in building the Swedish welfare state, folkhemmet. Therefore, their inability to repatriate never became a problem for Sweden.