Selected records from the Sigtuna Foundation in Sweden
Extent and Medium
folders
2
417 digital files, JPEG and PDF
69 pages of photocopies,
Creator(s)
- Alf Linderman
Biographical History
The Sigtuna Foundation is a private non-profit foundation, established in 1915 in Sweden. The organization is under the leadership of the Executive Director who servers under the board of nine people. The Foundation offers a neutral ground to people of different backgrounds, traditions and/or viewpoints who wish to meet, interact and learn from one another in an atmosphere of mutual respect. After the war ended, through an arrangement with UNRRA, Sweden agreed to receive 10,000 survivors from Bergen Belsen.They were brought from Luebeck with hospital ships to various harbors and divided among 135 accommodations. Sigtuna was the only such location in the Stockholm region. The SS Kastelhom made three voyages between Luebeck and Stockholm with about 200 patients in each, most of them were young Jewish women. Many of the patients were in such poor condition that they died shortly after their arrival in Sigtuna. The last parts of the Sigtuna hospital were closed at the beginning of 1946.
Archival History
Sigtunastiftelsen
Acquisition
Source of acquisition is the Sigtuna Foundation (Sigtunastiftelsen), Sweden. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the digitized collection via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum International Archival Programs Division in July 2016.
Scope and Content
Records from a hospital, set up in Sigtuna, Sweden, in 1945, which cared for about 1200 patients who had been released from the Bergen Belsen concentration camp. The collection includes photographs of patients and nurses, administrative and organizational records, including pages from the Statement of Operations, newspaper clippings, including an article in a college magazine about the hospital, as well as materials from Marthe Rydback, who worked as a nurse at the hospital, including a copy of an emblem of the hospital, a visitor book with signatures of the patients, photographs, Christmas cards, postcards, and thank you letters from patients, as well as some records of the patients.
System of Arrangement
Arranged in five series: 1. Photographs of hospital patiens and staff; 2. Hospital visitor book, correspondence, letters and postcards; 3. Organizational records, 1945; 4. School magazine "Sigtunaringen" (nr 3, 1945), and newspaper clippings from "Siguna Bygden," 1945; 5. Statement of Operations, 1945-1946. Photographs numbered 23D-33D were taken by the janitor Jonas Andersson Fisk and the others were donated by the sister of Marthe Rydback. The digital folder "Folio photos" contains raw photos taken of the folio photos from an the exhibition "Back to Life" on display at the Sigtuna Foundation in 1995 by Magdalena Kellerman and Pia Kristina Garde.
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Copyright Holder: Sigtunastiftelsen
Corporate Bodies
Subjects
- Hospitals--Sweden--Sigtuna--History--20th century.
- Medical care--Sweden--History--20th century.
- Sigtuna (Sweden)
- World War, 1939-1945--Jews--Rescue--Sweden.
- Refugees, Jewish--Sweden--Sigtuna--History--20th century.
- Humanitarian assistance--Sweden--History--20th century.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Europe.
- World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities--Europe.
- Jews--Sweden--History--20th century.
Genre
- Letters.
- Photographs.
- Correspondence.
- Clippings (Books, newspapers, etc.)
- Reports.
- Document