| The Great Escape to Sweden
| | On arrival to the Scanian harbours in Helsingborg and Malmo the refugees were interrogated by the Swedish police and sent to hastily established refugee camps. |
The Great Escape-Sweden
On arrival to the Scanian harbours in Helsingborg and Malmo the refugees were interrogated by the Swedish police and sent to hastily established refugee camps.
Swedish Refugee Policy
The First Foreigners´ Laws
The close cooperation with the Swedish authorities ensured that so many people got over. The background was a change in the Swedish refugee policy after August 29th 1943.
At that time Sweden pursued and immigration policy, which was very restrictive. According to the first foreigners´ law from 1927 a person could be refused admission at the border “if it could be assumed that he had planed to apply for a permanent stay, and that it in all likelihood could be assume that he was not able to earn a living.”
January 1st 1938 a new foreigners law was introduced, which was in force, when the intense persecution of the Jews went on in November in Germany and Austria. That, which really separated the new law from the previous, was that there was s passage on political refugees, which said that if there was a reason to believe that a refugee had political motives, the directory of social services should decide whether the individual was allowed to stay.
But the Jews were not considered political refugees! In principle the Swedish border was closed to them. As the Jews according to the Nuremberg-laws were not German citizens, they could not be sent to any state and therefore they would not be allowed in the country.
The Escape to Sweden |
The J-Passports
As Sweden did not demand a visa of travellers from Germany, it was required that the passport showed who could return to the country, and thus be allowed to enter Sweden. So Sweden demanded, at Germans and Jews had different passports! Otherwise compulsory visa had to be introduced when travelling to Sweden.
Switzerland had the same demands. The Germans introduced a special passport law on October 5th 1938. According to this law the Jews had to have a “J” stamped on the first page of their passports. Whether the German passport law was a result of the Swedish and Swiss demands, or if it would have been introduced anyway, is difficult to establish, but the facts remain: Sweden issued such demands and Germany introduced a passport law, which satisfied the Swedish demands.
Gøre Friberg, superintendent of police in Helsingborg during the war, was well informed on the conditions and he wrote in his book “Stormcentrum Øresund”:
Immediately after the German passport, we, who worked in the border stations, that is, the passport control, received a circular letter from the social services. It said that people wit a “J” passport were to be considered immigrants. They were not to enter the country without special permission. This came to apply to all Jews, when the few of them, who could be considered political refugees, did not count in the immigration statistics.” (p. 31). Furhermore Friberg wrotes: “It is a fact that the result of the Swedish foreigners´ legislature in practice was, that the fleeing Jews were turned away at the Swedish border.
Göte Friberg |
Protection of Swedish Labour
The Swedish immigration and refugee policy was meant to protect Swedish labour against competition many people from the unions and the academic circles participated in this cool-headed position. In Lund a meeting was called in the Academic Society on March 6th 1939, and a clear majority of the more than a thousand students present voted for a resolution, which warned against the immigration of “foreign elements”.
Even after April 9th 1940, when the Germans occupied Denmark, only a few refugees arrived in Sweden from the other side of the Sound. Until August 28th 1943 only 150 Danish refugees were granted asylum in Sweden.
After August 29th 1943
But there were people, who helped the refugees. Not least in the police in Helsingborg, where Gösta Friberg and Carl Palm with white lies and cunning, with thought and hard work saved many. But Friberg also relates in his book, how he on October 2nd 1943 was told by the foreign ministry in Stockholm that the border police from now on could discount all passport formalities.
In the first three war years only 150 refugees arrived in Sweden, but in one week in October several thousand arrived. In one day, 900 arrived in Helsingborg. In the month of October approximately 7000 Jewish-Danish refugees arrived in Scania.
Chief Constable Göte Friberg | 
The Security Police in Helsingborg |
Refugee Pressure on Helsingborg
Helsingborg received in the course of the hectic month of October 1943 more than 4000 Jewish refugees and an enormous organising was required. During the first refugee accumulation in the begining of October the Grand Hotel was filled and several other hotels. It was then necessary to find a refugee camp, which could be used for some time, before the refugees were taken further up the country in order to make room for others.
Ramlösa Spa, which was hibernating, was opened and functioned as a receiving central for all those, who were landed in Landskrona and north. The Ramlösa camp had a permanent doctors´ station, headed by a Danish doctor. As the flow of refugees were steady it was important that they could taken to new camps further up in the country and such an organisation quickly started to function.
Medical Examination | 
Joint Cooking in Ramlösa |
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 | Small | Large | Helsingborg – Accommodation in Ramlösa Spa |
“To Separate the Grain From the Chaff”
The camp had staff, whose task it was to find “stickers”, i.e. Nazi spies and other observers, who posed as refugees. The most dangerous were placed in the prison in Kalmar. It was somewhat sensitive that Sweden held “stickers” interned for the Danes until the end of the war. It was a silent arrangement without any papers between the Danes and the Swedes, who trusted each other.
It was clear that Göte Friberg from Helsingborg and the detective superintendent in Malmo, Richard Hansen, was involved in this arrangement. Richard Hansen repeated a conversation with the defence minister Per Edwin Sköld in these words, reported in a series of articles in “Svenska Dagbladet”1984-85 by Orvar Magnegård: “You must know that the government closes its eyes for what you are doing. If it is discovered, we cannot do anything to defend or help you. However, after the war you and police superintendent will be forgiven.
In the beginning of 1945 16,700 Danish refugees had arrived in Sweden, and 60% of these came via the Helsingborg area. All in all approximately 25.000 foreigners arrived in Helsingborg int he course of 1943-45.It was the events of August 29th 1943, which opened up Sweden.
Denmark in Sweden
Bøn til stjernerne
Terrorbander
Hærger mit land.
Natten splintres af bombebrag,
Clearingsmord på den lyse dag!
Vi emigranter
Ser ikke land
Tågebanker
Skjuler mit land
Miner driver i Øresund,
Mørket gaber med ild i mund.
Ønsker og tanker
Naar ikke land
Milde stjerner,
Lys for mit land!
Lad med fred på den klare dag
Røgen ringle fra husets tag,
Arbejdets kærner
Fylde mit land
(Den danske digter Otto Gelsted fra sit eksil i Sverige)
The Unofficial Denmark in Sweden
After August 29th 1943 the Danish envoy in Stockholm, chamberlain J.C.W. Kruse and his entire staff declared themselves independent and were thus ready to make an effort for the refugees, which poured over the Swedish border. The Swedes now received the Danes with open arms and they were allowed to establish a Danish press service. The editor Erik Seidenfaden had approximately 40 employees and was now able to transmit the attitude of the “unofficial” Denmark to the world public as a news service.
The Resistance in Sweden
It was also from Stockholm the Danish Liberation Council´s representative, Ebbe Munch, cleverly facilitated the connection between the resistance movement in Denmark and the allied authorities. In reality Munch functioned as an unofficial envoy and held the administrative and financial threads in his hand. A refugee office also established in Stockholm headed by professor Stephan Hurwitz and the later conciliator, Sigurd Wechselmann.
From Malmo editor Leif Hendil, Ekstra Bladet (Danish newspaper) directed the biggest Danish escape route: Danish-Swedish Refugee Service. A large part of the money to this came from Swedish Jews.
Ebbe Munch | 
Leif Hendil |
The Reception of the Refugees in Scania
At the reception in Helsingborg or Malmo the refugees went through medical examination, and were fitted out, if necessary. The police – often in cooperation with the Danish police, also investigated their circumstances, because they were afraid of spies.
After these preliminary arrangements they were allowed to travel on in Sweden, if they had contacts, which could procure work and housing. If not, they were sent to refugee camps in the neighbourhoods of Helsingborg and Malmo.
With so many people crammed in the hastily established refugee centres, it was no wonder that harassments arose. Not just internally among the refugees, but also in relation to the Swedish hosts. The Danish poet, Otto Gelsted was among the first to escape in October 1943. Here he came in close contact with a group of fellow Jewish refugees and in his memoir novel: “The Refugees in Husaby”, he conveys a well-informed picture of the atmosphere.
The Reception in Malmo | 
The Reception in Malmo | 
The Reception in Malmo |
Work, Schooling and Education
At this time there was a lack of labour in Sweden, and many entered the Swedish labour market. All in all the Danish refugees were helped in every kind of way by the Swedish authorities and private citizens. Schools were established for the children; Danish students were admitted to the universities, scientists and artists were allowed to continue their work.
On November 15th 1943 a Danish school was established in Lund with 40 pupils. January 1st 1944 primary school started and July 1st the school had 170 pupils and 25 teachers. A dansih school was also established in Göteborg, which had 200 pupils and 25 teachers at the end of the war. Furthermore there were smaller Danish schools in Helsingborg, Jönköping and Norrköping.
Danes studied at the universities in Lund, Uppsala, Stockholm and Göteborg and in 1944 final Danish jurisprudence university exams were held in Stockholm. Examiners and external examiners were Danish and eight students passed the exams. As the world war progressed and Germany lost footing, many of the refugees wanted to leave their mark on the course.
The editor of one of Denmark´s largest newspapers, Herbert Pundik has explained this in his memoirs; “Det kan ikke ske i Danmark (1993) (It Cannot Happen in Denmark):
One of the historians of the occupation in Denmark, Hans Kirchhoff assessed in 2001 the reasons why
Settlement | 
Children on the Run | 
Employment | 
The Gratitude of the Refugees |
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