The rehabilitation and integration of the Holocaust survivors in Sweden

What is the project about?

The project aims to bring new knowledge about the policies and actions of states and organizations concerning large-scale immigration of refugees and victims of war and other catastrophes, in this case the surviving remnant of European Jewry after the Holocaust.

The project explores how the care, rehabilitation, integration efforts and re-patriation and aid to re-emigration of Holocaust refugees and survivors was organised, financed and carried out in practice. It will provide insights about the changing nature of the public/private partnership in refugee aid and its consequences.

By applying a trans-national perspective, the project will give us more useful knowledge about the post war refugee aid and integration efforts in Sweden. The project will analyse the organizations, as ‘brokers’ between governmental and private donors (in Sweden and abroad) and the recipients, through an analysis of sources from several archives.

Research questions

The main research questions that the study seeks to answer are the following:

• What decided the Swedish policy towards the remnant of European Jewry after the Holocaust?
• How were these policies organized and carried out in practice, and why did they take the forms they did?
• What were Sweden’s and the Swedish Jewish organizations’ policies and actions on immigration, integration and re-emigration of this group?

By answering these questions, the study will also provide us with examples of different efforts to integrate and accommodate immigrants into Swedish society. It will show examples of different forms of organization of the carrying out of aid, care and integrating efforts by official, semi-official and private actors, which can give us valuable insights also about the present.

Project participants

The project is led and carried out by Pontus Rudberg, researcher and lecturer at the Hugo Valentin-centre at Uppsala University.