Metadata: Refugee Section of the Jewish Community of Stockholm
Collection
- Country:
- Sweden
- Holding institution:
- Swedish National Archives in Täby
- Holding institution (official language):
- Riksarkivet Täby
- Postal address:
- Box 12541, 102 29 Stockholm
- Phone number:
- 010-476 70 00
- Web address:
- https://riksarkivet.se/startpage
- Email:
- riksarkivet@riksarkivet.se
- Reference number:
- SE/RA/730128/03/05
- Title:
- Refugee Section of the Jewish Community of Stockholm
- Title (official language):
- Mosaiska församlingen i Stockholms Flyktingsektion
- Creator/accumulator:
- Jewish community of Stockholm
- Date(s):
- 1920/1980
- Language:
- Swedish
- German
- English
- French
- Hebrew
- Danish
- Extent:
- 45.6 m
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection of the Refugee Section of the Jewish Community of Stockholm primarily consists of documents from the section’s relief work with Holocaust refugees and survivors in Sweden. Most of the material is from the period 1941 to 1972, when a large re-organisation of the community took place. However, the archive also includes documents from its predecessor, the Relief Committee, from 1933 and the collection also includes personal files for individual refugees and Holocaust survivors that contain documents from as early as the 1920’s and as late as 1980.
The collection include a series of minutes (series A), in which the minutes of the Refugee Section are preserved with details about the activities of the section and the decision-making of the committee’s board as well as its sub-departments, including audited annual reports, budgets and petitions discussed by the board.
The correspondence series (E) includes 20 volumes of correspondence, of which some are structured alphabetically and indexed. The correspondence includes letters and other materials from foreign Jewish organisations, communities and individuals asking about the possibilities to come to Sweden or requesting other forms of aid. There are also a large number of letters from organisations and individuals in Sweden who were involved in refugee aid or who wanted to aid particular Jewish families or individuals to come to Sweden. Correspondence with the other Jewish communities in Sweden and their respective relief organisations generally concerns cooperation and coordination of relief to refugees in Sweden, but also provides and exchanges information about the fate of Jews in different parts of Europe. The series contains large amounts of correspondence with foreign Jewish relief organisations, such as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and HIAS/Hicem. There are also copies and transcripts of letters and reports sent to the Refugee Section in the series as well as correspondence with Swedish state authorities, such as the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the National Board of Health and Welfare, as well as numerous assistance requests by Jewish individuals for gainful employment, housing, residence permits and Swedish visas. The collection additionally includes the community’s correspondences with the Jewish communities of numerous other countries regarding cooperation on post-war restitution claims and rebuilding efforts, including China, Hungary, Spain, South Africa, Switzerland and the United States.
Furthermore, the collection also contains a large number of telegrams recieved and sent (copies and transcripts) from the period 1940–1946. These often concerns the travel arrangements for refugees and money transfers from Sweden to foreign Jewish relief organisations. In two volumes (E 4: 1–2) reports of the relief committees of the Jewish communities of Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö have been collected. Series D contains several different lists of Jewish refugees in Sweden. Series F includes a large number of themtically ordered reports and memos, and in volume F 4 a: 10 there is an unpublished report by David Köpniwsky with the title ”Några ord och siffror om Mosaiska församlingens i Stockholm flyktinghjälp under åren 1933–1950” [1951], which summarises the refugee and relief activities of the Jewish Community of Stockholm for Jewish refugees. Series F 5 contains documents relating to the section’s fundraising activities for the years 1939 to 1953. The F series (in F1 a) also contains files on individual refugees (persondossierer).
- Administrative/biographical history:
- At the turn of the year 1940/1941 the judicially and financially independent Relief Committee of the Jewish Community of Stockholm was coopted by the community as a division of its Relief Council. The committee consisted of two of the rabbis and the members of the executive board of the community as well as four elected representatives. The section initially had two sub-departments, the Emigration and Poor Relief Department and the Children’s Department. In 1945, three more sub-committees were created, one for post-war relief, one for social and cultural aid to Holocaust survivors in Sweden, and one to manage a temporary immigration, transmigration, of Jewish relatives of refugees and survivors in Sweden, as well as survivors who were getting a vocational training in Sweden in order to prepare them for further emigration. These departments have their own separate collections in the archive of the Jewish Community in Stockholm.
- Access, restrictions:
- Access to the collection is restricted to researchers. Permission is required and should be obtained in advance. Applications are made to the Swedish National Archives, which reviews them on behalf of the Jewish community of Stockholm, which makes the decision. The form and instructions can be accessed on the homepage of the Jewish Community of Stockholm: https://jfst.se/fler-tjaenster/oevriga-tjaenster/slaekt-och-personforskning/
- Finding aids:
- The archive that this collection is a part of has been indexed by the archivists Lars Hallberg and Mikaela Nybohm of the Swedish National Archives. The index can be found in a folder at the archive and in the archive’s database NAD (Nationell Arkivdatabas).
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Museum in Stockholm