White Buses - Reception and Accounting

Reception and Accounting

The main reception station in Denmark was in the city of Padborg, on the border with Germany; the prisoners received food and medical treatment before they were transported through Denmark to Copenhagen. Transport to Sweden was by ferry to Malmö where the prisoners were received by Länsstyrelsen, (the county administration) and Civilförsvaret, (civil defense). Everyone that arrived was placed in quarantine, due to the risk of spreading infection. In all there were 23 billeting areas, most of them in Malmöhus län with about 11,000 beds. Ambulanting health centres, mostly manned by Norwegian and Danish doctors and nurses (themselves being refugees), took care of the prisoners. For some of the prisoners it was too late; 110 died after arriving in Sweden, most of them Polish.

According to the Swedish Red Cross a total of 15,345 prisoners were saved, of these 7,795 were Scandinavian and 7,550 from other countries. Around 1,500 German-Swedes were transported to Sweden. A total of 2,000 prisoners were transported from Neuengamme to other camps so that space was available for Scandinavian prisoners. Four hundred French prisoners were transported from Neuengamme or left in Theresienstadt as they could not be delivered to the camp in Flossenbürg.

The "white buses" expedition was a Swedish triumph that earned the country much goodwill, the return transports through Denmark were met by ecstatic crowds. On May 17 Count Bernadotte af Wisborg was on the balcony of the Royal castle in Oslo with the Norwegian crown prince.

The British diplomat Peter Tennant, who was stationed in Stockholm during the war, wrote:

The Swedish humanitarian efforts under and after the war did much to remove the dishonor the country had got during its acrobatic exercises in neutrality policy.