Metadata: Consul General Olof Herman Lamm’s archive: Various documents
Collection
- Country:
- Sweden
- Holding institution (official language):
- Stockholms Stadsarkiv
- Postal address:
- Stockholms stadsarkiv, 104 22 Stockholm
- Phone number:
- +46 (0)8 508 28 300
- Web address:
- https://stadsarkivet.stockholm/
- Email:
- stadsarkivet@stockholm.se
- Reference number:
- SE/SSA/1112/B 54, 82–85, 87–88
- Title:
- Consul General Olof Herman Lamm’s archive: Various documents
- Title (official language):
- Generalkonsul Olof Herman Lamms arkiv: Handlingar
- Creator/accumulator:
- Lamm, Olof Herman
- Date(s):
- 1935/1952
- Language:
- English
- German
- Swedish
- Extent:
- 0.5 linear metres (7 volumes)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection is part of the archive of the Swedish Jewish diplomat and businessman Consul General Olof H Lamm. It contains 6 boxes of textual records related to Lamm’s contacts with the Jewish Community of Stockholm, his work for Jewish refugees during the time of Nazi rule in Germany and the post-war period.
Volume 54 contains documentation of Lamm’s involvement in the Swedish branch of the ORT organisation between the years 1947 and 1952, when Lamm was a member of the board. The documents include reports and correspondence about the branch’s activities, fundraising and donations. Volume B 82 contains Lamm’s correspondences with founder of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jacob Landau. Their correspondences illustrate Lamm’s assistance to Landau in raising awareness and acquiring subscribers for the Agency’s publications among the Jewish communities of Stockholm and Gothenburg.
Volume B 84 contains various material related to Lamm’s work with Jewish refugees prior to and during the years of World War II. The volume contains records of the financial support for Jewish refugees that Lamm gathered through donations from his peers and provided to the Jewish Community of Stockholm, prior to and during the years of WWII, as well as various recommendation letters written for Jewish refugees for the purposes of finding employment in Sweden. It also includes letters from various Jewish individuals from Sweden, Germany, Austria and the US who request Lamm’s assistance in acquisition of visas, residence permits, family reunifications and financial support, entailed by the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany.
Volume B 85 contains information on Lamm’s and the Swedish Jewish Communities’ endeavours to create post-War relief, rehabilitation and family reunification initiatives for Jewish refugees in such countries as Poland and Hungary, as early as in 1942. Lamm tried to mobilise such initiatives both domestically and internationally, proposing the adoption of various relief measures in 1943 to American Governor Herbert H Lehman, who at the time served as director general of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. The volume contains Lamm’s correspondence regarding the 1943 Jewish relief memorandum with various prominent persons, both in Sweden and abroad, among them Alva Myrdal and Torsten Nothin. Additionally, the volume includes information on the endeavours of Lamm and his associates to influence US refugee and visa policy through such individuals as State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Erik Boheman and the American Vice-Consul in Stockholm, William P Snow. The volume also contains documentation on Lamm’s attempts to help individual Jewish trans-migrants acquire US visas, migrate to South America or to find residence and employment in Sweden.
Volume B 87 consists of records related to the Stigbo orphanage, an orphanage for Jewish and “non-Aryan” children that was created in 1939 at the initiative of Signe Lamm, Tony Bonnier and Ingrid Sachs. Volume B87 contains details of Signe Lamm’s endeavours to establish and financially maintain the orphanage, asking peers and key individuals for donations and financial guarantees for the orphanage’s children. Photographs and printed material related to the orphanage can be also found in volume B88.
- Archival history:
- The collection is part of Generalkonsul Olof Herman Lamms arkiv, (the archive of Consul General Olof Herman Lamm). It was assembled by Signe Lamm and later donated to the Stockholm City Archives by a relative of Lamm, the archaeologist Jan Peder Lamm.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Olof Herman Lamm was born on 23 April 1887 in Stockholm as the son of the merchant and liberal politician Herman Lamm and Lisen Lamm (née Philipson). Both of his parents came from Swedish-Jewish families who had been among the first Jews to settle permanently in Sweden in the late 18th century. From 1919 to 1933 Olof H Lamm was the Swedish Consul General in New York. In 1933 he returned to Stockholm and became the executive director of an insurance company. In addition to these posts he had a number of different assignments and was engaged in various organisations, both Jewish and non-Jewish. For instance, he was an executive on the board of the Swedish branch of ORT and on the Israeli Chamber of Commerce in Sweden. He died in Lidingö in Stockholm in 1967.
- Access, restrictions:
- In order to access parts of the archive, written permission from Stockholm City Archive is required. This can be requested by e-mail: stadsarkivet@stockholm.se.
- Finding aids:
- There is an index to the archive in the database of the Swedish National Archives, NAD. There is also a more detailed index in a folder in the Stockholm City Archives.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Museum in Stockholm
- Author of the description:
- Pontus Rudberg; Jewish Museum of Stockholm; April 2021
