Sweden hewed to a policy of neutrality during World War II, but Swedish industrialists profited from the conflict by selling iron ore and ball bearings to Nazi Germany, thereby enabling it to press on with the war. Sweden, too, allowed German troop trains to pass through its territory, all in the service of placating Germany and preventing a German invasion.

Pursuing this strategic objective, Sweden turned a blind eye to Germany’s persecution of Jews. And once the war broke out, Sweden was loathe to admit Jewish refugees from Germany and German-occupied countries.

These little-known issues are explored in The Swedish Connection, a Netflix feature film based on real events. It unfolds in 1942 and 1943, when the Holocaust reached its crescendo and Jews, particularly from Norway, clamored to reach a safe haven in neighboring Sweden.

At the center of this brisk and methodically-crafted Swedish movie is civil servant Gosta Engzell (Henrik Dorsen), who directed the legal department in Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His department was normally in charge of reviewing visa applications, but since Adolf Hitler’s accession to power in Germany in 1933, it was inundated with asylum cases.

Initially, he scrupulously followed government directives, rejecting visa applications from Jews, even if they had Swedish connections. He was reluctant to incur the wrath of his bosses, who, in turn, did not want to offend Germany.

His department’s unspoken rule was that applications from Jews were to be “archived,” and that the plight of Jewish refugees was a “non-issue.”

Reports of genocide were conveniently classified as “rumors,” though the Swedish government was perfectly aware that the Nazis had launched a genocidal campaign against Jews in Europe. This gruesome knowledge was directly conveyed to Sweden by an SS officer, as a brief scene in the first few minutes of The Swedish Connection indicates.

In the summer of 1942, Swedish diplomat Goran von Otter boarded a night train from Warsaw to Berlin. He sat next to Kurt Gerstein, an SS officer who dealt with the mechanics of the Holocaust. Determined to expose Germany’s crimes, he informed von Otter about the mass gassing of Jews in Nazi extermination camps. Von Otter told his superiors at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about it, but it fell on deaf ears.

Until that moment, Engzell shared their callous indifference toward Jews in distress. A modest and unassuming person, he worked in a cramped basement office lined with sewage pipes clanking above his head, suggesting that the Swedish government assigned a low priority to Jewish and refugee questions.

Engzell’s dismissive attitude softened after he met Gilel Storch, a Latvian Jewish refugee who would be appointed as the World Jewish Congress’ envoy in Stockholm. Storch told him about Nazi shootings and gassings in his native Riga, and these horror stories left a marked impact on Engzell.

Engzell was also influenced by his new assistant, Rut Vogel (Sisella Benn), a refugee from Germany. She quietly convinced him that he should help Jews, especially in Norway, where a quisling government collaborated with German forces.

Norwegian Jews with family ties in Sweden were the first ones he assisted. By means of bureaucratic maneuvers, he furnished visas for those who could escape.

In 1943, when the Jews of Nazi-occupied Denmark were threatened with deportation to extermination camps, Engzell persuaded the Swedish government to drop visa restrictions and allow them into Sweden for the duration of the war. This episode is dealt with very briefly.

Engzell’s resourcefulness extended to Hungary, which was occupied by Germany in 1944. Raoul Wallenberg, a businessman from a prominent Swedish family, was dispatched to Budapest in July of that year with the express purpose of saving the remnants of Hungarian Jewry. By then, the pro-German fascist Hungarian regime had consigned more than 400,000 Jews to their deaths in  the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland.

In accordance with Sweden’s new policy, Wallenberg issued protective passports to tens of thousands of Jews and sheltered them in buildings labelled as Swedish property. It is not clear what role, if any, Engzell played in this chapter of the Holocaust.

What definitely comes across in The Swedish Connection is that decent individuals like Engzell made all the difference when lives were at stake. He could have sat back and done nothing, like most people. Instead, his conscience impelled him to do the right thing.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)