33 Spring 2026 Background Few events concerning Sweden’s small Jewish community have garnered international attention or can be considered of global historical importance. An exception occurred in the summer of 1945, at the end of World War II. The war had resulted in immeasurable suffering and the death of millions of Jews. Still, at the end of the war, an estimated 300,000-400,000 surviving Jews temporarily resided in the war-affected regions of Europe. Most of the survivors were in poor mental and physical condition, having survived concentration and extermination camps, and in some cases, the infamous “death marches.” Among the survivors were those who had been married and whose spouses had disappeared or were presumed dead. The Swedish Government defined the Holocaust survivors who arrived as repatriandi, meaning those meant to return to their countries of origin after rehabilitation. Although most had no plans to stay in Sweden, very few considered such repatriation. The reasons were, of course, twofold: the antisemitism they had endured, and which still showed its ugly face when Jews tried to return to their homes after the Shoah, and the fact that most of their Jewish communities had been destroyed. Some of the survivors hoped to remain in Sweden. Others would eventually go to North America and Palestine (from 1948, the State of Israel). In all cases, after rehabilitation, there was no reason to delay marriage once the basic conditions for marriage had been established. The 1945 Agunot Cases The survivors were brought to Sweden for rehabilitation. The government and the Red Cross set up hundreds of camps and facilities to provide medical and social services. Within the group that arrived in Sweden, a majority were women. An estimated 2,500 feared they had lost their spouses. These women were essentially Agunot, who, under Jewish law, are unable to remarry. In this case, the women were prevented from remarrying until they could prove that their spouse had died. For many of these widowed survivors, achieving some level of physical and mental rehabilitation, and continuing life, required psychological closure, remarriage, and the establishment of a new family. Therefore, the need to find evidence of a spouse’s death and to have it accepted by both the Rabbinical and the Swedish authorities was critical for their rehabilitation. Obtaining Marriage Permission (Heter Nissu’in) according to Jewish Law In order to remarry according to halacha, these widows and widowers first needed to obtain a Heter Nissu’in from an authorized Rabbinical Court. This became a huge problem after the war all over Europe and in Eretz Yisrael, as thousands of presumed Aguna cases required swift and sensitive resolution. One of the first initiatives came from the London Beit Din (Religious Court), which disseminated a circular in the summer of 1945, primarily to European rabbinates. It briefly presented the situation and the challenge, and encouraged European rabbis to collect testimonies of death as a result of the war. Everyone was asked to “request and inquire” among surviving men and women, (a) the names of those who had without doubt died in their presence; and (b) information learned from third parties about deaths of men and women, and how that information was obtained. The letter contained additional instructions. This methodology for collecting information as the basis for halachic decisions is atypical of how a Beit Din usually functions. However, these were post-war times that required prompt action while survivors were still together in Displaced Persons (DP) and refugee camps. In Sweden – probably more than in most European locations outside the continental DP camps – there was an innate understanding of the need for such documentation. Sweden’s Orthodox rabbis immediately began collecting testimonies during their visits to the many rehabilitation camps on Swedish soil. They were among the first to recognize the survivors’ deep need to share the names of those whose deaths they had witnessed or heard about from others. One rabbi, A.I. Jacobson, meticulously wrote down all testimonies in his own handwriting on 87 pages in a specially purchased black compendium, now part of his collection deposited in Yad Vashem’s document archive.5 5. A.I. Jacobson, Record Group O.41, File 1337, Moshal Repository of the Rabbi A.I. Jacobson Collection, Yad Vashem.
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