Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Witnessing the Holocaust: Jewish Experiences and the Collection of the Polish Source Institute in Lund

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Early Holocaust Memory in Sweden

Part of the book series: The Holocaust and its Contexts ((HOLC))

Abstract

The Polish Source Institute (PIŹ) in Lund in southern Sweden collected over 500 testimonies from Polish survivors in Sweden. The study analyses the work of the archive’s founder Zygmunt Łakociński and examines what role the Holocaust played in this documentation project. The author shows that the Polish national experience was the focal point of this collection. However, the institute also created a small Jewish section for interviews with Polish-Jewish survivors in Sweden. As the Jewish witnesses describe, Jewish life in Poland before the war was, despite widely spread antisemitism, strongly flourishing, and Polish-Jewish relations were deeply entangled. The complexity of these relations makes it impossible to view Polish history of war-suffering without considering the war-suffering of Polish Jews.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. 1.

    Therkel Stræde, ‘Die Aktion Weiße Busse’, in Befreiung Sachsenhausen 1945, eds. Günter Morsch and Alfred Reckendrees (Berlin: Hentrich, 1996), 42–52; Simone Erpel, Zwischen Vernichtung und Befreiung. Das Frauen-Konzentrationslager Ravensbrück in der letzten Kriegsphase (Berlin: Metropol, 2005).

  2. 2.

    Ingrid Lomfors, Blind fläck. Minne och glömska kring svenska Röda korsets hjälpinsats i Nazityskland 1945 (Stockholm: Atlantis, 2005); Sune Persson, Vi åker till Sverige. De vita bussarna 1945 (Rimbo: Fischer & Co, 2002); Stræde ‘Die Aktion’, Weiße Busse’, 42–52; Erpel, Zwischen Vernichtung und Befreiung; Izabela A. Dahl (2008), ‘Die “Weißen Busse” und Folke Bernadotte. Zur Rezeption der Hilfsaktion in Deutschland und Skandinavien’, in KZ und Nachwelt. Dachauer Hefte. Studien und Dokumente zur Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager, eds. Wolfgang Benz and Barbara Distel (Dachau: Dachau Selbstverlag, 2008), 203–220. In fact, according to the Red Cross report from 2000, it succeeded in transporting to Sweden 15,345 or 15,445: 7795 or 7895 of whom were of Scandinavian origin and 7550 non-Scandinavians. No specification regarding gender or nationality is provided. See Agneta Greayer, Sonja Sjöstrand and Martin Wikberg, Vita bussarna. Svenska Röda korsets räddningsaktion till Tyskland under Andra världskriget (Stockholm: Svenska Röda Korset, 2000).

  3. 3.

    Andrzej Nils Uggla, I nordlig hamn. Polacker i Sverige under andra världskriget (Uppsala: Centrum för multietnisk forskning, Uppsala Universitet, 1997), 198.

  4. 4.

    Carola von Gegerfelt (1904–1972) was a historian and librarian at the University in Lund and was honored with the Swedish Royal Order of the Polar Star (Nordstjärneorden). She was an active social activist who had good command of Polish language.

  5. 5.

    For similar government initiatives aiming at collecting Holocaust testimonies in Western European countries, see Pieter Lagrou. ‘Historiographie de guerre et historiographie du temps présent. Cadres institutionnels en Europe occidentale, 1945–2000’. Bulletin du Comité international d’histoire de la 2éme guerre mondiale, 30–31 (2000), 191–215; Henry Rousso, The Latest Catastrophe. History, the Present, the Contemporary (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).

  6. 6.

    The web portal of Lund University providing the digitised collection translated the name of the working group, Polski Instytut Źródłowy as ‘The Polish Research Institute in Lund’, see: https://www.ub.lu.se/witnessing-genocide. In the sources, the Institute calls itself ‘Polish Historical Institute in Lund’ (PIZ: 44). The translated name differs from the language of the sources and in the following, I will refer to the name of the working group as the Polish Source Institute.

  7. 7.

    For biographical details, see Anna Wolodarski, ‘Zygmunt Otto Łakociński (1905–1987)’, Biuletyn Historii Sztuki, no. 3–4 (2000): 695; Izabela A. Dahl, ‘“…this material arousing interest in common history…” Zygmunt Łakociński and Polish survivors’ protocols’, Jewish History Quarterly 223, no. 3 (2007): 319–338.

  8. 8.

    Letter to Zygmunt Łakociński (30 October 1941), see Eugeniusz Kruszewski, Polski Instytut Źrodłowy w Lund (1939–1972). Zarys historii i dorobek (London: Polski Uniwersytet na Obczyźnie 2001), 99. See also, Thomas von Gegerfelt, ‘Min far Zygmunt Łakociński’, Svensk-Polsk Bulletin, Mars, 2006.

  9. 9.

    ‘England och USA har erkänt Polen’, Ny Dag, no. 153 (6 July 1945): 3. For more on the transformation of the new government, see Anne Appelbaum, Iron curtain. The crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944–1956 (London: Allen Lane 2012).

  10. 10.

    Polak, no. 1, 20 July 1945, p. 1. On press addressing Polish-Jewish and non-Jewish survivors and refugees in Sweden in the years 1945–1948, see Izabela A. Dahl, Ausschluss und Zugehörigkeit. Polnische jüdische Zwangsmigration in Schweden nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Berlin: Metropol, 2013), 157–165, 174–183.

  11. 11.

    Zygmunt Łakociński to Knut-Olof Falk, 16 June 1945, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 46, Universitetsbiblioteket, Lunds Universitet (Lund University Library, LUB).

  12. 12.

    Dahl, ‘“…this material arousing interest in common history…”’, 319–338.

  13. 13.

    Polak, no. 47, 14 June 1946, p. 2.

  14. 14.

    Zygmunt Łakociński to Presidium of the Polish Refugee Council in Sweden, 10 October 1947, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 46, LUB.

  15. 15.

    For more on the Polish government-in-exile, see David Engel, In the Shadow of Auschwitz. The Polish Government-in-exile and the Jews, 1939–1942 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987); David Engel, Facing a Holocaust. The Polish Government-in-exile and the Jews, 1943–1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993).

  16. 16.

    Laura Jockusch, Collect and Record! Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early Postwar Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 88.

  17. 17.

    Wołodarski, ‘Zygmunt Otto Łakocinski’, 693–695.

  18. 18.

    Kruszewski, Polski Instytut Źrodłowy w Lund (1939–1972), l03–104; Wołodarski, ‘Zygmunt Otto Lakocinski’, 693–695; Zygmunt Łakociński obtained his Swedish citizenship on 26 September 1947. See Zygmunt Łakociński to Presidium of the Polish Refugee Council in Sweden, 10 October 1947, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 46, LUB.

  19. 19.

    PM, 17 May 1945, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 44: 1c, LUB.

  20. 20.

    Dahl, Ausschluss und Zugehörigkeit.

  21. 21.

    PM, 17 May 1945, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 44: 1c, LUB.

  22. 22.

    PM w sprawie Polskiego Instytutu Źródłowego w Lund, 17 May 1945, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 44: 1c, LUB.

  23. 23.

    ‘PM w sprawie Polskiego Instytutu Źródłowego w Lund’, 3 October 1946, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 44: 2j, LUB.

  24. 24.

    ‘PM w sprawie Polskiego Instytutu Źródłowego w Lund’, April 1946, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 44: 2d, LUB.

  25. 25.

    ‘Sprawozdanie za okres 22/10.1945–30/9.1946’, September 1946, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 44: 2k, LUB.

  26. 26.

    ‘PM w sprawie Polskiego Instytutu Źródłowego w Lund’, April 1946, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 44: 2d, LUB; Zygmunt Lakocinski to Johannes Lindblom, 20 May 1946, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 44: 2f, LUB.

  27. 27.

    Zygmunt Łakociński to Sture Bolin, 3 August 1946, Sture Bolin collection, LUB.

  28. 28.

    ‘Sprawozdanie za okres 22.10.1945–30.9.1946’, 21 September 1946, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 44:2k, LUB.

  29. 29.

    ‘Sprawozdanie za okres 22/10.1945–30/9.1946’.

  30. 30.

    ‘PM angående en polsk kvinnlig intellektuell arbetsgrupp i Lund’, 20 June 1945, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 44: 1d, LUB.

  31. 31.

    PM w sprawie Polskiego Instytutu Źródłowego w Lund, 3 September 1946, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 44:2j, LUB.

  32. 32.

    For more information on Sture Bolin and his links to the right-wing movement, see Birgitta Odén, Sture Bolin. Historiker under andra världskriget (Stockholm: Kungl. Vitterhetsakademien, 2011); Sverker Oredsson, ‘Några synpunkter på Sture Bolin och Sveriges Nationella Förbund’, Scandia 77, no. 2 (2011): 101–107.

  33. 33.

    Kristian Gerner, ‘The Holocaust and Memory Culture. The Case of Sweden’, in Historicizing Uses of the Past. Scandinavian Perspectives on History Culture, Historical Consciousness and Didactics of History Related to World War II, eds. Helle Bjerg, Claudia Lenz, Erik Thorstensen (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2011), 94.

  34. 34.

    ‘Sprawozdanie za okres 22/10.1945–30/9.1946’.

  35. 35.

    Zygmunt Łakociński to Sture Bolin, 3 August, 1946, Sture Bolin collection, LUB.

  36. 36.

    Ibid.

  37. 37.

    Zygmunt Łakociński to R. Sutton Pratt, 4 November 1946, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 46, LUB.

  38. 38.

    ‘Brev/handlingar till/från myndigheter, institutioner och organisationer i utlandet’, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 41, LUB; Zygmunt Łakociński to Sture Bolin, 3 August 1946, Sture Bolin collection, LUB.

  39. 39.

    ‘Sprawozdanie za okres 22/1945–30/9.1946’.

  40. 40.

    Kruszewski, Polski Instytut Źrodłowy w Lund, 76.

  41. 41.

    Jockusch, Collect and record!, 89–94, 218. See also Johannes Heuman’s chapter about Nella Rost and the historical commission and the WJC in this volume.

  42. 42.

    ‘Intyg rörande Luba Melchior’, 3 August 1946, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 44: 2i, LUB; Zygmunt Łakociński to Franciszek Stefaniak, 12 December 1946, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 46, LUB; Luba Melchior to Zygmunt Łakociński, 21 January 1947, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 49, LUB.

  43. 43.

    Zygmunt Łakociński to Sture Bolin, Udden, 21 July 1947, Sture Bolin collection, LUB.

  44. 44.

    Zygmunt Łakociński to Ludwika Broel-Platter, 1 October 1952. See also Kruszewski, Polski Instytut Źrodłowy w Lund, 66.

  45. 45.

    Artur Szulc, Röster som aldrig tystnar. Tredje rikets offer berättar (Stockholm: Norstedts, 2005).

  46. 46.

    ‘Stadga för PIZ’, 20 February 1947, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 44: 3 a, LUB.

  47. 47.

    Jockusch, Collect and record!, 96. See also Jerzy Tomaszewski, ‘Polish History on the Holocaust’, in Nazi Europe and the Final Solution, eds. David Bankier and Israel Gutman (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2003), 111–135; Natalia Aleksiun, ‘Polish Historiography of the Holocaust. Between silence and public debate’, German History 22, no. 3 (2004): 406–432.

  48. 48.

    ‘PM w sprawie Polskiego Instytutu Źródłowego w Lund’, 3 September 1946, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 44:2j, LUB.

  49. 49.

    ‘PM w sprawie Polskiego Instytutu Źródłowego w Lund’, April 1946, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 44:2d, LUB.

  50. 50.

    See, for example, ‘Unsigned letter to Presidium of the Polish Refugee Council in Sweden’, 12 October 1948, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 46, LUB.

  51. 51.

    For more on the relief work coordinated in Stockholm by the Jewish Community of Stockholm, see Pontus Rudberg, The Swedish Jews and the Holocaust (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2017).

  52. 52.

    Inga Gottfarb, Den livsfarliga glömskan (Höganäs: Wiken, 1986), 190.

  53. 53.

    Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 19 and 20, LUB.

  54. 54.

    Dahl, ‘“…this is material arousing interest in common history”’, 319–338; Izabela A. Dahl, Collective Memory and National Identity Construction. Polish Survivors’ Records in Sweden, in Landscapes after Battle: Justice, Politics and Memory in Europe after the Second World War, eds. David Cesarani, Suzanne Bardgett, Jessica Reinisch and Dieter Steinert (London and Portland: Vallentine-Mitchell Publishers, 2011), 169–186; Szulc, Röster som aldrig tystnar.

  55. 55.

    Frida Katz, Pamiętnik, Halmstad, (56 p. in Polish), Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 32, 1, LUB.

  56. 56.

    Ibid., 6.

  57. 57.

    Ibid., 17.

  58. 58.

    Ibid., 16.

  59. 59.

    Ibid., 17.

  60. 60.

    Ibid., 20.

  61. 61.

    Ibid., 7.

  62. 62.

    ‘Franka Silbersztein-Salomonowicz’, 10, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 20, LUB.

  63. 63.

    Ibid., 15.

  64. 64.

    Ibid.

  65. 65.

    Ibid.

  66. 66.

    Ibid.

  67. 67.

    Ibid., 16. Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 20, LUB.

  68. 68.

    Interview with Izrael Wajdling, recorded by Luba Melchior, 4 August 1946, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 20, LUB.

  69. 69.

    Ibid.

  70. 70.

    Ibid.

  71. 71.

    Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski (eds.) (2018), Dalej jest noc. Losy Żydów w wybranych powiatach okupowanej Polski (Warszawa: Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów, 2018), vol. 1 and 2.

  72. 72.

    Jan Grabowski, Rescue for Money. Paid Helpers in Poland, 1939–1945 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2009).

  73. 73.

    Paul Rudny, Polski Instytut Źródłowy w Lund (PIZ), (n.d.), http://www3.ub.lu.se/ravensbruck/piz-presentation.pdf Accessed 29 April, 2018.

  74. 74.

    See for example Barbara Törnquist-Plewa, ‘The Tale of Szydlowiec. Memory and Oblivion in a Former Shtetl in Poland’, in The Holocaust on Postwar Battlefields. Genocide as Historical Culture, eds. Klas-Göran Karlsson and Ulf Zander (Malmö: Sekel, 2006), 191–224; Klas-Göran Karlsson, ‘The Holocaust and Russian Historical Culture. A Century-Long Perspective’, in Echoes of the Holocaust. Historical Cultures in Contemporary Europe, eds. Klas-Göran Karlsson and Ulf Zander (Lund: Nordic Academic Press 2003), 201–222.

  75. 75.

    Dahl, Ausschluss und Zugehörigkeit, 175.

  76. 76.

    Franka Silbersztein-Salomonowicz, 13, Lakocinski collection, PIZ: 20, LUB.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden

    Izabela A. Dahl

Authors
  1. Izabela A. Dahl
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Izabela A. Dahl .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden

    Johannes Heuman

  2. Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Pontus Rudberg

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Dahl, I.A. (2021). Witnessing the Holocaust: Jewish Experiences and the Collection of the Polish Source Institute in Lund. In: Heuman, J., Rudberg, P. (eds) Early Holocaust Memory in Sweden. The Holocaust and its Contexts. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55532-0_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55532-0_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-55531-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-55532-0

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation