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Holocaust Testimonies in Jewish Compensation Claims in the United Restitution Organisation’s Archive in Stockholm

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Early Holocaust Memory in Sweden

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

Abstract

This chapter deals with testimonies derived from legal processes and documents the creation of several bureaus for the provision of legal aid to Jewish refugees and survivors making claims against Germany, Poland and other countries between 1947 and 1950. Yet another bureau, The URO Bureau, was created in 1953 as a national branch of the international United Restitution Organisation to assist individuals who wanted to file claims for restitution in line with the German compensation laws of 1952. The files of these bureaus include both the applicants’ personal testimonies and the final accounts that were part of the applications, drafted in the more objective and detached style that is typical of legal testimonies. The author shows how claims for justice have influenced the narratives in these testimonies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    H. W. to Byrån för ersättningsfrågor’, 2 May 1954, URO-byrån för rättshjälp, E1: 1, Judiska församlingen i Stockholms arkiv (Archive of the Jewish Community of Stockholm, JFA), Riksarkivet ([Swedish] National Archives, RA). In order to protect their integrity, I have omitted the names of the claimants and their relatives.

  2. 2.

    Bundesergänzungsgesetz zur Entschädigung für Opfer der nationalsozialistischen Verfolgung (BErG) of 18 September 1953. The law was replaced by the so called Bundesgesetz zur Entschädigung für Opfer der nationalsozialistischen Verfolgung (BEG) of 29 June 1956. For an account of the activities of the Claims Conference and its negotiations with Germany see for example Ronald W. Zweig, German Reparations and the Jewish World. A History of the Claims Conference (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1987).

  3. 3.

    Wilhelm Michaeli, ‘Rättshjälp för nazismens offer’, Församlingsblad för Mosaiska församlingen i Stockholm (FB), no. 6 (1953): 82–83.

  4. 4.

    Ibid.

  5. 5.

    Kurt Stillschweig, ‘Rättshjälp åt flyktingar’, FB, no. 2 (1948): 38–39.

  6. 6.

    Manfred Schmitz-Berg, Wieder gut gemacht? Die Geschichte der Wiedergutmachung seit 1945 (Düsseldorf: Grupello Verlag, 2017), 12–13.

  7. 7.

    Ibid.

  8. 8.

    Stillschweig, ‘Rättshjälp åt flyktingar’, 38–39.

  9. 9.

    B. Maier, ‘Aktuellt om URO’, FB, no. 4 (1958): 54–56; Norman Bentwich, ‘Tenth Anniversary of U.R.O. Address at Staff Conference on November 12’, AJR Information 12, no. 1 (1959): 1.

  10. 10.

    Maier, ‘Aktuellt om URO’.

  11. 11.

    Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 27 October 1953; Svensk Juridisk Tidskrift, 15 October 1953.

  12. 12.

    Maier, ‘Aktuellt om URO’.

  13. 13.

    Ibid.

  14. 14.

    Ibid.

  15. 15.

    Wilhelm Michaeli, ‘Rättshjälp för nazismens offer’, FB, no. 6 (1953): 82–83.

  16. 16.

    Helmut Müssener, Exil in Schweden. Politische und kulturelle Emigration nach 1933 (München: Hanser 1974), 111.

  17. 17.

    Ibid, 276.

  18. 18.

    Ibid; Michaeli, ‘Rättshjälp för nazismens offer’; David Köpniwsky, ‘Ersättning åt nazismens offer’, FB, no. 5 (1957): 77.

  19. 19.

    ‘URO-byrån för rättshjälp’, FB, no. 2 (1958): 30.

  20. 20.

    ‘Wilhelm Michaeli 70 år’, FB, no. 2 (1959): 33.

  21. 21.

    David Köpniwsky, ‘Ersättning åt nazismens offer’, FB, no 5, 1957: 77; Wilhelm Michaeli, Ersättning åt offer för nationalsocialistisk förföljelse (Bundesentschädigungsgesetz) och därmed sammanhängande spörsmål (Stockholm: Nordiska bokhandeln, 1957).

  22. 22.

    “URO-byrån för rättshjälp”, FB, no. 2 (1958): 30.

  23. 23.

    Michaeli Ersättning åt offer för nationalsocialistisk förföljelse, 79. Michaeli’s numbers on point a to d are based on the official statistics of the Jewish community of Stockholm. The figures in point d are based on ‘an estimation’.

  24. 24.

    A Z to Byrån för ersättningsfrågor, Malmö, 25 January 1953, URO-byrån, E1: 1, JFA, RA.

  25. 25.

    Byrån för ersättningsfrågor to A Z., Stockholm, 30 January 1953, URO-byrån, E1: 1, JFA, RA.

  26. 26.

    A Z to Byrån för ersättningshjälp, Malmö, 30 November 1953, URO-byrån, E1: 1, JFA, RA.

  27. 27.

    E W to Mosaiska församlingen i Stockholm, Berlin 29 May 1954, URO-byrån, E1: 1, JFA, RA.

  28. 28.

    A A to URO-byrån Stockholm, Landskrona den 5 November 1955, URO-byrån, F1: 7, JFA, RA.

  29. 29.

    Ibid.

  30. 30.

    E W to Mosaiska församlingen i Stockholm, Berlin 29 May 1954, URO-byrån E1: 1, JFA, RA.

  31. 31.

    For recent research on survival strategies, see: Evgeny Finkel, Ordinary Jews. Choice and Survival during the Holocaust (Pricenton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019).

  32. 32.

    A L, ‘Schilderung des Verfolgungsvorganges unter Darlegung der Geltend gemachten Körperschäden’, Stockholm 1 January 1959, URO-byrån F1: 68, JFA, RA.

  33. 33.

    ‘Schilderung des Verfolgungsvorganges’, R A, Stockholm, 3 February 1954, URO-byrån, F1: 7, JFA, RA.

  34. 34.

    Wilhelm Michaeli to E W, Stockholm 23/6 1954, URO-byrån, E1: 1, JFA, RA.

  35. 35.

    M M to E W, Stockholm 5 May 1961, URO-byrån, E1: 1, JFA, RA.

  36. 36.

    Miriam Sterner Carlberg, Gemenskap och överlevnad. Om den judiska gruppen i Borås (Göteborg: Göteborgs Universitet, 1994), 239–240.

  37. 37.

    M K, Testimony given in support of F A’s claim for restitution. Copy, n.d., URO-byrån, F1: 7, JFA, RA.

  38. 38.

    A A to Mosaiska Församlingen i Stockholm, Landskrona, 17 August 1954, URO-byrån, F1: 7, JFA, RA.

  39. 39.

    URO-byrån to F A, Stockholm, 12 July, 1957, URO-byrån, F1: 7, JFA, RA.

  40. 40.

    Dr Tore Emgård, Copy of doctor’s certificate, reading (in its entirety: ‘defernsförändr. i knäna /broskförslitningar m. värk/ rekom. befrielse fr. arbete av mera anstr art och kallt, fukt dyl. Rekom. sålunda om möjl. 15/1 –60 T Emgård’, URO-byrån, F1: 7, JFA, RA.

  41. 41.

    A A to Ruth Liebenthal, Landskrona, 10 October 1962, URO-byrån, F1: 7, JFA, RA.

  42. 42.

    Wilhelm Michaeli to R A, Stockholm, 11 February 1954. Copy, URO-byrån, F1: 7, JFA, RA.

  43. 43.

    Wilhelm Michaeli to R A, Stockholm, 2 November 1954. Copy, F1: 7, JFA, RA.

  44. 44.

    Wilhelm Michaeli, ‘Fallet Schäffer’. Judisk Tidskrift 31, no. 2. (1958): 49–53.

  45. 45.

    Kurt R. Eissler, ‘Die Ermordung von wievielen seiner Kinder muß ein Mensch symptomfrei ertragen können, um eine normale Konstitution zu haben?’ Psyche 17, no. 5 (1963): 279–280, 289; Nils Asmussen, Der kurze Traum von der Gerechtigkeit. “Wiedergutmachung” und NS-Verfolgte in Hamburg nach 1945 (Hamburg: Ergebnisse Verlag, 1987); Christian Pross, Wiedergutmachung, Der Kleinkrieg gegen die Opfer (Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum-Verlag, 1988).

  46. 46.

    Göran Rosenberg, Ett kort uppehåll på vägen från Auschwitz (Stockholm: Bonnier, 2012). For other Swedish Jewish authors recollections of their parents claims for “Wiedergutmachung”, see Helena Trus, Ett kilo socker. Farmor glömmer aldrig priset på sitt liv (Stockholm: Norstedts, 2019); Kenneth Hermele, En shtetl i Stockholm (Stockholm: Weyler, 2017); Bertil Oppenheimer, Till Sverige. Historien som aldrig blev berättad (Stockholm: Jure, 2010).

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  1. Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Pontus Rudberg

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  1. Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden

    Johannes Heuman

  2. Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Pontus Rudberg

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Rudberg, P. (2021). Holocaust Testimonies in Jewish Compensation Claims in the United Restitution Organisation’s Archive in Stockholm. 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_4

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