Metadata: Archive of Gunhild Tegen
Collection
- Country:
- Sweden
- Holding institution:
- Carolina Rediviva, Uppsala University Library, Manuscripts department
- Holding institution (official language):
- Carolina Rediviva, Uppsala universitetsbibliotek, Handskriftsavdelningen
- Postal address:
- Uppsala University Library, Carolina Rediviva, Dag Hammarskjölds väg 1, Box 510, 751 20 Uppsala
- Reference number:
- SE/UUB/REA000105856
- Title:
- Archive of Gunhild Tegen
- Title (official language):
- Gunhild Tegens arkiv
- Creator/accumulator:
- Tegen, Gunhild
- Date(s):
- 1907/1970
- Language:
- Swedish
- German
- English
- Polish
- Extent:
- 104 volumes
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection contains a rich assortment of records related to the experiences of Jewish survivors of concentration camps, compiled by Gunhild and Einar Tegen as part of their post-World War II documentation project. The documentation was gathered at the initiative of the Swedish Joint Committee on Democratic Reconstruction (Samarbetskommittén för Demokratiskt Uppbyggnadsarbete), of which professor of philosophy Einar Tegen, the author Gunhild Tegen’s husband, was president. The interviews were conducted by Swedish psychologist Valdemar Fellinius and polyglot Dory Engströmer, and where carried out at refugee camps and university locales. Though the documentation process encompassed over 600 refugees, many survivors would abstain from answering the questionnaire, out of fear that inclusion in such a book might compromise their identities and lead to future persecutions. The questionnaires and interviews touched upon victims’ conditions of abduction/arrest, their conditions of escape or rescue, their treatment during their detainment at concentration camps, as well as the victims’ personal experiences and general well-being following their exposure and subjection to atrocity. A considerable number of interviewees in the collection are Jews that had been prisoners at Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, Neuengamme and Belsen. As the questionnaires and interviews of Jewish victims were quantified separately from Christian prisoners, the Tegens’ preliminary work with the assembled material offers specific insights on the experiences of Jewish survivors, offering graphic statistics on the types of abuse that they suffered in the camps. Additional statistical information includes countries of origin, nationalities, spoken language and quantified data on specific concentration camp internment. In addition to the documentation covered by the committee initiative, the collection includes correspondences between Gunhild Tegen and her acquaintances from other European countries who, having learnt of the committee’s work with refugees, decided to share their own accounts on survivor experiences.
The collection furthermore contains various source material related to Testimonial of the Condemned, the 1945 book in which Einar and Gunhild Tegen published the documentation mentioned above. The collection includes correspondence between the Tegens and various publishing houses in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands, in the couple’s attempts to have the book translated and published abroad, which met limited success. Plans to translate the manuscript to Hebrew and send it to Mandatory Palestine for publishing and revision were made as early as December 1945. The correspondence in the collection further show that discussions to use Testimonial of the Condemned as evidence in the Nuremberg trials had taken place. Though the endeavour was ultimately not realised, a copy of the book was sent to the Chief United States Prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, Robert H Jackson.
- Archival history:
- The collection was deposited at the Carolina Rediviva library in 1970, according to Gunhild Tegen’s last will and testament. Additional contributions to the collection were made in 2006 by Andreas Tegen and by Pia-Kristina Garde-Svenhard in 2014 and 2017.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Gunhild Maria Elisabet Tegen (1889-1970), daughter of Johan Petter Nordling and Maria Erika Dahlén, was a Swedish writer and translator. Her engagement with the prosecution of Jews in Nazi Germany began in 1934, when Tegen read Gerhard Seger’s report on the German situation, written and published shortly after the latter’s escape from Oranienburg concentration camp. Influenced by Seger’s report, Tegen wrote a film manuscript in 1935 concerning the situation of Jews in Germany which, despite receiving minor acclaim, was never made into a film. During the years of World War II, Tegen was active in the Committee for Intellectual Exiles (Kommittén för landsflyktiga intellektuella), maintaining engagement in refugee care as well as in the peace movement. She also maintained close contact with Jewish poet and playwright – and later Nobel laureate – Nelly Sachs, who had arrived in Sweden as a refugee in 1940. After World War II, Tegen worked extensively on documenting the experiences of concentration camp survivors, which would be published in the edited volume Testimonial of the Condemned (De dödsdömda vittna) in 1945. The majority of interviews, questionnaires and manuscripts used in the volume can be found in this collection.
- Access points: locations:
- Sweden
- Subject terms:
- Holocaust
- Holocaust--Concentration camps
- System of arrangement:
- The collection is thematically structured.
- Finding aids:
- Finding aids are available online.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Museum in Stockholm
