In the Holocaust’s immediate aftermath (1945–1946), a small gallery in Lund, Sweden exhibited the paintings and drawings of Polish artist Jadwiga Simon-Pietkiewicz, which depicted her former fellow inmates in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. This exhibit and subsequent exhibitions elsewhere in Sweden marked rare instances of early postwar Holocaust art displayed in a country that had been relatively unaffected by the Holocaust. By analyzing the response of the Swedish public and press to the artwork in these exhibits, as well as Swedish and international responses to “atrocity photos” of the liberation, the author broadens our understanding of Holocaust art, early testimonies, and agency and resistance during and after the Holocaust.

While many, if not most, memes are harmless fun, others foster misogynistic stereotypes, willfully distort and obscure history, and spark abusive behavior on social media. Six years ago, I came across one of these and decided to uncover the real history behind the photo, never expecting the effect it would have.

Chapter 14 in “Fallen Monuments and Contested Memorials,” edited by Juilee Decker. This chapter, co-authored with Malin Thor Tureby, takes an unexpected example of contested spaces of memory and heritage as a point of departure to consider and reflect on how ‘dead survivors’ of Nazism buried in Sweden have been commemorated. The analysis considers five Swedish cemeteries by delving into the sites’ past and present, the presence and absence of monuments and other forms of memorialization and contextualization, and how these aspects relate to the discursive and historiographical treatment of victims of Nazi persecution who came to Sweden in both historical and contemporary contexts, particularly in relation to issues of gender, place, and identity and belonging.

Although the Polish survivors of Nazi persecution who came to the refugee camp in Öreryd were healthy enough to be moved from quarantine and hospitals, they were far from "recovered." They had just begun their long journey – physically, emotionally and psychologically – away from the atrocities they, their families and their homeland had been subjected to. Öreryd, like the other Swedish refugee camps, was only a short stop on the survivors' journeys from a life under Nazi oppression to something new and as yet unknown. (The chapter is in Swedish only.)

Among the hundreds of sites that housed survivors of Nazi persecution who came to Sweden in the spring and summer of 1945, one of the largest was at the small village of Öreryd. Between June 1945 and September 1946, around a thousand Jewish and non-Jewish Polish survivors came to this site. This article contributes to filling a gap in refugee history in Sweden, dealing with how survivors experienced Swedish refugee camps and shaped the refugee camp environment on their own terms.

This article makes visible and analyzes survivor testimonies gathered in interviews between Jewish and non-Jewish Polish survivors of Nazi persecution in Sweden in 1945–1946.

Sweden's rise to one of the most gender equal countries in the world did not occur because women won the "battle of the sexes", but rather because their access to equal rights benefited all of society.

From a Swedish codebreaker to a colony of conscientious objectors in Sweden, and quite a bit in between, these are not your average history books.

While the Green Book has become something of a buzzword lately thanks to Hollywood, the “mother” of the essential guide for African Americans navigating Jim Crow America has been overlooked and all but lost to history.

When writers broadly categorize and “market” women in history using terms like rebels, bad-asses, shady ladies, rejected princesses, etc., they are – unconsciously or otherwise – perpetuating the tradition of distorting women and their role in history.

In Stockholm's Northern Cemetery (Norra begravningsplatsen) is the large and well-maintained tomb of Count Folke Bernadotte, a member of the Swedish royal family whose role in negotiating the release and transport of some 21,000 prisoners of Nazi concentration camps to Sweden is well-documented. In the Jewish area of the cemetery not far away, lie the derelict and all-but-forgotten graves of 100 victims of the Holocaust. These were mostly very young women, who died not long after arriving i

From a former slave to two Nobel laureates, a selection of women writers in modern history and their often-overlooked narratives of Christmas.

Six little-known women from around the world – starting with a Russian-Jewish immigrant and ending with a French former chambermaid – who contributed to first-wave feminism in the United States.

Fika may be the most recognizable representation of Sweden's enduring love-affair with coffee and baked goods, but the lesser-known and much less-frequently practised tradition of kafferep, with origins going back to the 1700s, takes fika to a whole other level.

Katharine Houghton Hepburn helped American women secure the vote and reproductive freedom. Her daughter was a four-time Oscar winner. Chances are, you know about the actress, but not the activist.

A major New York City airport is named in honor of her brother, but Gemma La Guardia Gluck’s story of surviving Ravensbrück concentration camp as the political prisoner of Adolf Eichmann unjustly exists in the shadows of history.

Less than a century ago, in September 1921, Swedish women voted for the first time in a national election. Though they had waited two years since becoming fully enfranchised in 1919, the real struggle had been overcoming the voting regulations that Swedish political scientist Torbjörn Vallinder described as "among the most undemocratic in Europe".

What Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin did for the abolition movement in the United States, Fredrika Bremer’s 1856 novel Hertha did for the women’s movement in Sweden. Bremer’s boldly feminist novel graphically illustrated women’s oppression under Sweden’s antediluvian laws, and prompted a heated public debate that contributed to emerging social and legal changes for women. It also inspired an arm of the Swedish women's movement that continues to advocate for women today.

English author H.G. Wells envisioned a future of alien invasion and time travel. He dabbled in dystopian nightmares and conjured up mad scientists and invisible men. And, to the disgust of two of his feminist lovers, he imagined a utopia where “women are to be as free as men.”

From the early years of the Swedish mass migration in the 1850s to the dawn of the 20th century, travel across the Atlantic changed dramatically.

In the 1930s, a devastating fire and a secretly kindled romance threatened to permanently engulf Gröna Lund Tivoli in Stockholm.

In the first half of the 20th century, Sweden implemented an unconventional campaign to transform it from a country with the lowest standards of housing in Europe to one of the highest in the world.

In the early 1900s, a motorcycle-riding, tobacco-smoking young woman changed Swedish journalism and introduced a powerful new female role model to Swedish literature.

In early 1968, Sweden brought tensions with the United States to a head when it doubled down on its anti-Vietnam stance by granting asylum to four American military deserters.

Stockholm Olympic Stadium defied those who said Sweden wasn't advanced enough to host the Olympic Games in 1912, and has survived to become the world's oldest Olympic stadium actively in use.

In spring 1945, as the Second World War was nearing its end, Sweden carried out the biggest humanitarian relief expedition ever to take place within Nazi Germany.

In 1949, a Swedish football player made international headlines when he dared to bare in Brazil.

On November 20th, 1918, a tragic ferry accident claimed the life of a Swedish artist whose enchanting depictions of folk and fairy tale creatures still capture the imagination.

In the mid-1940s, a Swedish "farm girl" became a running-phenomenon, breaking world records and shattering gender barriers.

Charles Lindbergh's 1933 visit to Sweden helps tell the story of how his grandfather fled the country 74 years earlier.

The image of a tree in the middle of Drottningholmsvägen in 1916 tells of a world at war and a country on the verge of a major transformation.

Dubbed the "Swedish Riviera", a beach in Skåne once attracted foreign royalty and tourists with the promise of abandoning conventional morality.

The controversial 1960 marriage of a Swedish actress and an African-American celebrity still has much to reveal about racism and anti-Semitism in Swedish and world history.

Seventy-five years ago, Sweden's questionable wartime neutrality, a Russian spy, and three "missing" Soviet bombers led to devastation in Stockholm.