Truth About Sweden

The movie portrays Sweden as solidly anti-Nazi. Holden's character is shunned by everyone he knows and even his wife dumps him, after he expresses some sympathy for the Nazis and enters into commercial relations with them. But what are the facts? In 1938, a Swedish government official expressed concern about the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees coming out of Germany and asked the Nazi government to mark the passport of every Jewish citizen so that each could be easily spotted and denied entry. While Sweden declared neutrality at the outbreak of war in 1939, it engaged in heavy trade with Germany until 1943, becoming its chief supplier of iron ore, ball bearings and timber. It permitted the use of its railways to transport moire than 100,000 truckloads of war material for the Germans as well as 2.1 million German soldiers. Swedish policy changed only after the catastrophic defeat of the Nazis at Stalingrad in 1943, when it became evident that the Nazis were on the losing side. Swedish attitudes took a slumber in regard to the Jews until after the six day war. The Swedish press then depicted Israel as a power hungry aggressor and its left leaning media used classic anti-Semitic imagery to indict all Jews. In 1982 the Swedish prime minister actually accused Israel of treating Palestinian children in the exact way the Nazis had treated Jewish children, which was mass murder. In truth, the Holden character would have found himself in a lot of company among his fellow Swedish citizens when he entered into dealings with the Nazis.