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“The Model Camp” Close Up and at a Distance: Theresienstadt in Danish and Swedish History Culture
Author(s): Zander, Ulf
Editor(s): Rudberg, Pontus; Geverts, Karin Kvist; Bruchfeld, Stéphane
Date: 2026
Topics: Holocaust: Legacies, Remembering and Attitudes Towards, Main Topic: Holocaust Legacies and Memorial, National Identity, Memory
Abstract: Theresienstadt, Terezin in Czech, is first and foremost associated with the Holocaust. Most of the Danish Jews who did not manage to escape to Sweden in the Autumn of 1943 were deported to this ghetto, which also functioned as a concentration camp. Theresienstadt has also an important function in Swedish history culture, mainly because Jews were rescued from “the Model Camp” via the White Bus Action and brought to Sweden in the final stage of the Second World War. The article is a comparative study of the different ways that Theresienstadt has been written about in Denmark and Sweden, both during the second World War and during the post-war period when both Lidice and Theresienstadt were used in ideologically influenced Cold War debates. Another aspect is in what ways that Theresienstadt has been associated with October 43 in Denmark and the White Buses in Sweden, and the significance that the history of the ghetto/concentration camp has had on the national identities of the two Scandinavian countries.