Overview
- Interview Summary
- Birgit Blideman, born in 1925 in Malmö, Sweden, describes her grandmother, who emigrated came from Russia in the 19th century to Lund, Sweden; her grandparents' house in the Nöden area of Lund, where her grandfather also owned an antique store; her father, who was a traveling merchant; her mother, who was strictly Kosher on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; having a large meal on Friday and a nice dinner on Saturday; attending a Cheder (Jewish school) and being very interested in her studies; suffering antisemitism at a secular school; socializing with other Swedish Jews in Malmö; a girl, named Rita, who lived with her family while Hitler was in power in Germany; the occupation of Denmark in April 1940 and many Danish Jews fleeing to Malmö; meeting Jewish refugees through the Jewish Union and the Jewish student club; the Jewish social activities in the city; survivors arriving on white buses after the war; her father searching for a man named Seligsohn amongst the survivors and not finding him; working with the survivors from May to November 1945; getting married to Erwin Leiser when she was 20 years old; the public perception of the survivors in Sweden; her commitment to the Jewish state.
- Interviewee
- Birgit Blideman
- Interviewer
- Carolyn Östberg
- Date
-
interview:
2017 March 01
- Geography
-
creation:
Stockholm (Sweden)
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection
Physical Details
- Language
- Swedish
- Extent
-
1 digital file : MP4.
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Sweden. Antisemitism in education--Sweden. Antisemitism--Sweden. Jewish refugees--Sweden. Jewish teenagers--Sweden. Jewish youth--Sweden--Societies and clubs. Jews--Migrations. Jews--Social life and customs. Jews--Societies, etc. Jews--Sweden--Malmö. Jews, Russian--Sweden. World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Swedish. Women--Personal narratives.
- Geographic Name
- Lund (Sweden) Malmö (Sweden)
- Personal Name
- Blideman, Birgit, 1925-
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- This is a witness interview of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Perpetrators, Collaborators, and Witnesses: The Jeff and Toby Herr Testimony Initiative, a multi-year project to record the testimonies of non-Jewish witnesses to the Holocaust.
- Funding Note
- The production of this interview was made possible by Jeff and Toby Herr.
The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. - Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 09:41:27
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn594407
Additional Resources
Summaries (2)
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- See Rights and Restrictions
- Terms of Use
- This record is digitized but cannot be downloaded online.
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Also in Oral history interviews of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Swedish Witnesses project
Oral history interviews of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Swedish Witnesses project
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