For a couple of years ago I was contacted by filmmaker Carl smith. He planned a documentary, with a double time horizon, applied to the Holocaust. What was the attitude of Swedish policymakers to the mass extinction while the war was going on? How have the original interpretation of moral responsibility affected the post-war history? He wanted to do an interview with me that would be included in the film. In december I saw the result, the film ”A Swedish tiger”, at a closed viewing in Uppsala.
the Reason for my participation was that Carl smith had dug in tidningsarkiven. He had discovered that I 1981, when I was Expressen’s director of cultural affairs, was the only Swedish journalist who, on the spot in Paris had been covering a trial against a French holocaust denier.
French rättsprocedur low in the clutch to my country. A Swedish diplomat had been assigned the role of the shootout. In the film I talk about the vittnesmålets importance to förnekaren was convicted.
”A Swedish tiger” assumes that the moral responsibility borne by all of us as people. Its approach is the impact on individuals. A German and a Swedish woman, both born during the second world war, meet in Germany. They talk about their fathers ‘ roles in relation to the Holocaust. Their attempts to understand their family history switches in the film with the image documents from the extermination camps. The problem for both women is that they know that their fathers bar key roles in relation to the mass extinction.
the SS officer Kurt gerstein witnessed, the father of the German woman, is placed in Berlin. The Swedish woman’s father, Göran von Otter, is the child of a diplomat at the Swedish legation in Berlin. I met him during the trial in Paris.
the Film is based on a known historical fact: in August of 1942 to meet von Otter and But by chance during a train journey between Warsaw and Berlin. Referred to the corridor of the crowded train, the a call during the night. But describes massmordets mechanisms and ask von Otter to convey the information to the Swedish government. Sweden’s Berlinambassadör receive an oral explanation. He does not want to get the evidence documented in writing. It takes four months before the UD gets some of the facts.
describe von Otter on his meeting with gerstein witnessed in a foreign MINISTRY report:
”After a breakdown, which he only with difficulty, came over, he told me that he returned from a few days studiekommendering at a likfabrik in Belzec to the east of Lublin. He depicted thereon the entire gasningsförfarandet (…), the victims ‘ treatment before and after the exekutionen, the procurement of jewelry, guldtänder and undanstuckna currencies, funerary habits, etc
He entertained the notion that the German people was not a moment wanted to support the German nazistregeringen, if the knowledge of the människoutrotningen spread and was confirmed from the impartial sources.”
At the end of the war escapes this Holocaust whistle-blowers through a sönderbombat Germany to the american zone. He is arrested and treated as suspected war criminals to a prison in Paris. Where found, he was hanged in July 1945.
Was this a suicide or the result of a revenge from the German prisoners, who saw But a traitor? No one knows.
historical research who Kurt gerstein witnessed was. He chose to work as a part of the massmordsstrukturen to get the insight of what was going on. He put his life on the line to get the outside world to intervene. His attempt was futile. And there was no refuge for a man with SS-background when Germany lay in ruins.
During his life in house arrest in the German town of Rottweil, just before he is brought to Paris, writes But a report to his eftervärld. It is a chilling factual description of the conditions in the concentration camps, of victims and executioners, and their inter-relationships.
”A Swedish tiger” projected textsjok from this Kurt Gersteins testament with summary headings, which refers to the content. In textprojiceringen included Gersteins vittnesbeskrivning of two of the Holocaust huvudadministratörer, Christian Wirth and Odilo Globocnic, the latter, with Förintelsehistorikern Michael Allen’s words, ”the most evil individual in the most evil organization that ever has existed”.
What are the relevant facts of the case? First in the world to the Swedish government, via the von Otters report to the MINISTRY for foreign affairs, a detailed look into the Holocaust during its initial phase. The government was not. And the political class’s betrayal affected not only the history of the world. The lack of action also affected the witnesses.
. He relied in vain on the ”neutral” country as a path to world opinion. However, Göran von Otter, was also a let down. As a subordinate official at the Swedish embassy in Berlin, he would have violated the most sacred rule, neutralitetsdogmen, if he had acted as whistle-blowers. He placed the choice to trade their home country’s political leadership.
A few days after Holocaust remembrance day, I hear on the BBC World Services nätkanal a news report about Sweden. Deborah Lipstedt, the author of a new book titled ”the anti-Semitism Here and Now”, has just been to Stockholm. She asked how she puts Sweden in their here-and-now scale. She is concerned about. Her contacts in Stockholm has described a shift in attitudes. Here, as in other european countries, are taboos in the use of language about people with a jewish background on the way to breaking up.
From my perspective, Carl Svensson’s review of the Swedish contemporary legacies of blindheter shattering. But the interest to show it has been limited. SVT has said no on the grounds that it is too long. The film has recently, thanks to the personal efforts, reached an audience in Gothenburg.
the second time on the cinema screen. It was displayed at the Historical museum, as a part of the Jewish culture in Sweden. The auditorium was filled to the last seat. The film screening was followed by a short moment of silence. Then came a deliberately muted applause that lasted the longer.
