Der Spiegel recently published an article commemorating the 75th anniversary of the "White Buses" sent by the Swedish Red Cross to rescue survivors of Nazi death camps during the last days of World War II:

"Mit weiβen Bussen in die Freiheit : Kurz vor Kriegsende gelang eine der größten Rettungen von Gefangenen aus Konzentrationslagern: Rund 20.000 Menschen kamen frei. In einem der Weißen Busse Richtung Schweden saß der dänische Widerstandskämpfer Knud Christensen, heute 95"

Beginning in March 1945, the Swedish Red Cross (and eventually the Danes) sent dozens of buses- painted white in attempt to avoid strafing by Allied fighter aircraft - to pick up and transport Swedish and Norwegian inmates from several concentration camps back to Sweden. In the final days of the war, Hitler had ordered the murder all surviving inmates in the Nazi death camps. The White Bus rescue mission was negotiated between Count Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish diplomat, and Heinrich Himmler, Hitler's second in command. Himmler, knowing that defeat was near, thought this humanitarian gesture might save him:

"In early 1945, Himmler met with Count Bernadotte at the Swedish Red Cross headquarters located on the grounds of Friedrichsruh Castle in Germany (the castle was owned by Bernadotte’s friend, Otto von Bismarck and his Swedish wife). During the meetings, he tried to convince Bernadotte to carry an offer to surrender to the British and Americans with the caveat of allowing Germany to continue its fight against the Soviet Union. In return, he would allow Bernadotte to organize efforts aimed at transporting Scandinavian concentration camp inmates to Sweden. Himmler thought this gesture would ensure he was viewed in a positive manner."

The first convoys recused camp prisoners from Sweden and Norway. Subsequent rescue missions transported Polish, Russian, and Jewish prisoners. One of the last buses in May 1945 rescued a seriously ill German teenager from the Auschwitz death camp. How 15-year old Cordelia Hoffmann, raised as a strict Catholic by her mother - the famous writer Elisabeth Langgässer - ended up in Auschwitz is one of the more egregious examples of the Nazis' perverted Rassengesetze (For background see my blog post Elisabeth Langgässer's 'Sophie's Choice'). The bus brought her safely to Sweden, where she was nursed back to life by a guest family. After she recovered, she was encouraged to leave the horrors of Auschwitz behind - to "move on." But Cordelia couldn't move on.

"Ihr wollt mir meine Angst wegnehmen, sie verleugnen und ausstreichen und euch vor meiner Wut schützen, aber dann streicht ihr auch mich aus, 'ausradieren' nannten es die Deutschen, dann verleugnet ihr auch mich, denn all dies bin ich."16 ("You want to take away my fears, to deny them, to cross them out and spare you from my rage - but then you would cross me out - "erase me", as the Germans say - and then you would be denying me, for I am all of that.")

Cordelia went on to become a famous journalist and writer under her married name of Cordelia Edvardson in Sweden and Israel. In 1985 she wrote a short, searing memoir of her time in Auschwitz - Bränt barn söker sig till elden , translated into English as Burned Chile Seeks the Fire (see my review). Her time in hell informed her journalistic pursuit of justice.

"Dies ist mein Aufruhr und meine Revolte [...]. Auschwitz ist und bleibt der Grund in mir, doch was aus dem von den Knochen und der Asche der Toten gedüngten Humus wächst, das bestimme ich - zumindest bei Tag. Über die Alpträume der Nächte, über die Grundschicht der Vergangenheit haben wir keine Macht."

Just one of the voices rescued by the White Buses. Today the house in Berlin-Westend where Cordelia was arrested by the Gestapo is marked by a Stolperstein.







