in detail
Survivors from concentration camps arrived in Sweden during the spring of 1945. More than 21,000 individuals of different nationalities, including 5-6000 Jews, were brought to southern Sweden by the "white busses" of the Bernadotte expedition.
In the University Library we keep the archive of Zygmunt Łakociński (1905-1987) professor of the Polish language at Lund University, who in cooperation with Sture Bolin, later senior professor of history, formed a committee concerned with the documentation of the experiences of the former Ravensbrück prisoners. The archives describe the Jews, the holocaust and the prisoners who lived in Ravensbrück and other camps. A large part of the archives consists of more than 500 hand written interviews, on an average 3-4 pages long but there are also some very long interviews, 20 pages at the most. The signature of the interviewer as well as the interviewee is included. Internationally renowned scholars consider this material unique because it has been collected using a scientific method and because the documentation occurred shortly after the arrival of the interviewees in Sweden. "Memorabilia" i.e. notes, diaries, poems, photographs, drawings and objects that the prisoners brought with them to Sweden. Most objects were deposited in 1966 in The Kulturen Museum of Local History in Lund and since exhibited by this institution.
Lists of prisoner transports, Ravensbrück and other camps, 1938-1944 - thousands of names; lists of diseased and lists of accommodation of former Polish concentration camp prisoners in Sweden: transcripts of hearings of witnesses of diseased and murdered Polish citizens in Germany from September 1 1939; transcripts of protocols from trials in Hamburg and Ravensbrück; different material concerning concentration camps (maps of the camps, lists of names of those who lived in the different houses, so called "Block books", dictionaries of camp language, etcetera). Material concerning The Polish Social Aid to Refugees in Stockholm: a list of Polish citizens who arrived in Sweden from German concentration camps transported by the U.N.R.R.A; a list of Polish citizens evacuated from German concentration camp by The Red Cross under Folke Bernadotte. A large collection of cuttings from Swedish, German, English, Polish and Russian newspapers, journals and propaganda concerning the years 1939 to approximately 1967; A collection of Polish exile press and books about the origins of World War II. The material is in Polish. There are a few exceptions.
Lund, 1940s, Exterior view of the University, University Lund.
Lund, 2004, Interior view of the Library, University Lund.
Stensjoen Nomnekul, 1945, Jewis survivors of the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, USHMM.
