Two months after the evacuation of the almost 10.000 women from Ravensbrück and Neuengamme, Sweden admitted more than 9000[1] former prisoners from Bergen-Belsen.
Same as the evacuees from Ravensbrück and Neuengamme the stay was to be temporary. Whereas the women from Ravensbrück and Neuengamme were liberated from the concentration camps and brought to safety just before the end of the war, the former Bergen-Belsen prisoners were already liberated mid-April 1945 and came to Sweden two month later primarily to recover from the horror of Bergen-Belsen and subsequently transit to their country of destination. The Bergen-Belsen project was a deal between the Swedish Government and UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration). Certainly, also urged by Jewish organisations. The Swedish Red Cross took part with medical staff in Lübeck and on the boats between Lübeck and Sweden. The Swedish Government had insisted on a sanitary check[2] of the people from Bergen-Belsen before boarding the ships (the “White Boats). Furthermore, for the check to be executed by the Swedes themselves.
This was one of the reasons for a substantial organisation with facilities in Lübeck as described in detail by Hans Anoldsson in “Natt och Dimma”.
The Swedish part of the organisation in Lübeck was started by the Swedish “Civilforsvarstyrelsen” who, with the assistance of the Swedish Redd Cross hired staff with dr. Arnoldsson as their leader. The main quarter became a former German military Barrack just outside Lübeck. The Swedish contingent left Sweden on the 19th of June. Well established the organisation counted 56 British from the Royal Army Medical Corps and 26 persons (mainly female) from UNRRA. The largest group formed approximately 500 local Germans. Among them 14 physicians and 105 nurses. The Swedes had 110 persons in Lübeck, and the same number worked on the ships.
The financing of the project is not clear but since it was a task started in Bergen-Belsen continued in Sweden, UNRRA is likely to have financed the major part.
Hans Arnoldsson went twice to Bergen-Belsen. He had been active in the rescue action “White Busses” earlier in March and April 1945 and stayed behind in Lübeck because of Gösta Hallquist, a Swedish lieutenant who was in a hospital in Schwerin. Hallquist had been seriously wounded on duty with the “White Busses”.
First time Arnoldsson was in Bergen-Belsen was 10 May 1945. He went there with Willy Pfister from ICRC[3]. The confrontation with the camp was a shock. At least, the deathrate that day was reduced to 100, from 1000 at arrival of the British Army on 15 April. The first patients from Bergen-Belsen arrived Lübeck on the 23rd of June. At that time Arnoldsson went again to Bergen-Belsen to get a rough view of the condition of the people to be sent to Sweden. Arnoldsson was accompanied by the surgeon’s professor Fischer and doctor Arneus and noted a significant improvement in the condition at Bergen-Belsen compared with the situation at the previous visit.
The above is a summary of the different parties taking care of the patients from Bergen-Belsen on their way to Sweden. Coming back to the above mentioned “Civilforsvarstyrelsen”. This large organisation was set up to protect the Swedish civil community in case of war. They had made all kind of provisions and precautions to aid war victims. The war did not come to Sweden and so the unused capacities and the organisation of the civil defence became very useful for the victims of the concentration camps who came to Sweden.
[1] 9273 according H.Arnoldsson, page 194 in “Natt och Dimma”
[2] The fright for Typhus brought to Sweden
[3] International Committee of the Red Cross