Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Map
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part One
- Part Two
- 7 Security, Subversion, Spies and Sabotage
- 8 The Battle for Sweden's Mind – Propaganda and Censorship
- 9 Race, Rejection, Reception, Rescure and Redemption – Swedish Humanitarian Endeavours
- 10 Military Matters
- 11 The Front at Home – Beredskapstiden
- 12 Looking Back in Anger? The Assault on ‘Small-State Realism’
- Abbreviations and Glossary
- Reference Sources and Bibliography
- Index
9 - Race, Rejection, Reception, Rescure and Redemption – Swedish Humanitarian Endeavours
from Part Two
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Map
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part One
- Part Two
- 7 Security, Subversion, Spies and Sabotage
- 8 The Battle for Sweden's Mind – Propaganda and Censorship
- 9 Race, Rejection, Reception, Rescure and Redemption – Swedish Humanitarian Endeavours
- 10 Military Matters
- 11 The Front at Home – Beredskapstiden
- 12 Looking Back in Anger? The Assault on ‘Small-State Realism’
- Abbreviations and Glossary
- Reference Sources and Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In the second half of the twentieth century, Sweden adopted the mantle of a humanitarian nation, prominent in Red Cross and United Nations global activities. Earlier, during the First World War, there had been exchanges of war-wounded and displaced civilians across Swedish territory. The persecutions of the inter-war years and the brutal horrors of the 1939—45 conflict provided further opportunities for neutral Sweden to contribute to relief for suffering humanity. In the era of the Holocaust, Soviet and German atrocities in occupied territories, how did Sweden respond?
Race
The enlightened example of the Swedish government in establishing the Swedish State Institute for Race Biology is one which other nations would do well to follow. The usefulness of such an institution was so well realized in Sweden that the Riksdag gave assent to its establishment without voting, on May 13, 1921.
These approving remarks came from E. W. Gifford, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California in 1928, well before the Nazis employed racial difference as an instrument of state policy in Germany. Racial study had also been legitimised in Sweden by enthusiastic support across the spectrum from leading politicians including Social Democrat Hjalmar Branting and intellectuals such as Selma Lagerlöf.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Sweden, the Swastika and StalinThe Swedish Experience in the Second World War, pp. 188 - 208Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2011