White Busses: A WWII Rescue Mission by the Swedish Red Cross an account by Franzesca von Vietinghoff

Dr Jeutner invited me to meet his Faculty colleagues and students to tell my story of:

The White Busses. A rescue mission by the Swedish Red Cross, early 1945

"Their painful skin abscesses will heal once these children arrive in a safe country"

Introduction

A remarkable humanitarian rescue effort took place in March and April 1945 just before the end of WWII. It was organized by the Swedish Red Cross and rescued some 15000 people from Germany. Today that is 81 years ago.

When Germany in 1940 occupied Norway and Denmark they sent 14.000 men and women to concentration camps. Sweden remained neutral. The White Busses, as the Red Cross rescue mission became called, intended to save those Scandinavians but also other nationals, and 1.200 German-Swedes, tysklandssvenskar, a group that was never interned. My family filled the criterion of 'Swedish women who were married to German men' and became listed for rescue with the White Busses. We were my mother Emelie, 31 years old, and her three children aged one year to 7 years, Karin, Regina, and Franziska (I, the writer). My father Erik did not take part. He was drafted into active war service.

The White Busses

The White Busses rescue mission benefited from the guidance of Folke Bernadotte, a Swede known for his leadership skills. Early 1945 when plans for the rescue developed, Bernadotte shuttled between Stockholm and Berlin to negotiate with the German authorities. The aim was to obtain permission for a White Busses rescue convoy to enter Germany. Once there they would pick up interns from the concentration camps and transfer them to a neutral and safe country, Sweden. The White Busses convoy would be allowed to split into groups and simultaneously drive to different collection points.

The year 1945 was a chaotic time. Thanks to the Red Cross' willingness to act immediately, and to Bernadotte's diplomatic skills, the intended aims were reached. The plans for the White Busses rescue mission was allowed by the German authorities to go ahead. To achieve the authorization and then carry out the next phase were amazing feats by the Red Cross.

The work for the rescue mission was already underway. The Red Cross in Sweden had detailed plans for every minute detail ready. The HQ were set up in Lübeck, Germany, while Malmö, Sweden, was designated the main arrival point.

Malmö and Lund

The action tasks were clearly defined at all levels, both for the rescue of the concentration camp interns and their arrival at the reception points in Sweden. Malmö and Lund prepared by opening hospitals, schools, sport centres, military barracks (of the then Cavalry) and private homes opened their doors. The local people in Malmö and Lund volunteered and were ready to be of assistance wherever needed and around the clock.

In Malmö the Red Cross' most urgent actions were defined to disinfect and delouse the arrivals in order to stop diseases, to provide food, mostly in small controlled portions since many arrivals suffered from severe malnutrition, and to provide treatment against tuberculosis and typhus.

In Lund the actions concentrated on stabilizing the ill, on recovery, and on treatment for mental trauma. For it was known that extreme fear and anguish when remaining untreated may settle in the human body for lifelong disturbing presence. Further, providing safe surroundings and fostering a feeling of safety was of great importance for the former camp interns.

Despite the extreme humanitarian efforts that took place in Skåne County some of the former interns were too ill to survive. Those who died were buried in Malmö and Lund. Graves of other arrivals who perished may be found in communities around Skåne.

Nowadays, in 2026, the descendants of those courageous people in Malmö and Lund recall stories told by their parents or grandparents about the arrivals of the White Busses and the selfless and immense work the civilians performed in March and April 1945.

Our Situation

Here I will leave the brief background of the White Busses and turn to my family's escape and rescue. In part I will cite from my mother Emelie's hand-written recollections written four decades after the events. Today we, Emelie's family, admire her emotional courage to put on paper her devastating war memories for us later to know, to invite reflection, and to share.

My parents were Erik, of an old aristocratic Baltic-German family from Latvia, and Emelie, a well-educated Swedish lady. They married in 1936, three years before WWII started. At the age of 17 years in 1917 Erik had been drafted into the WWI, and now he took part in the entire WWII.

Emelie and Erik settled on the family properties near Dresden, the beautiful Baroque town that in February 1945 was firebombed by the Allies. From home we witnessed the huge fires and flames that filled the skies over Dresden. At the same time the Russian Red Army had advanced well into Germany. We heard the Red Army canons in the distance.

It was the spring of 1945 and rumours were circulating that the German Army soon would face its defeat. Without a passport in her own name, as was the custom for women in those days, Emelie could not leave Germany, weather she wanted or not.

However, on 6 March 1945 the news reached Emelie via a telegram from her cousin Nils-Eric who was attached to the Swedish Embassy in Copenhagen. The Government of Sweden had changed its policy and would now allow paper-less women and children from war-torn countries to cross its borders. Nils-Eric encouraged Emelie to leave home for the Swedish Church in Berlin where her name was listed for departure with the White Busses.

We read in Emelie's memoires that without delay she packed two suitcases with essentials and sent them ahead to Berlin by train. The following day we, Emelie and her three children, travelled to Berlin. There, at the railway station Anhalter Bahnhof, we learnt of Allied bombings during the previous evening. Our two suitcases were gone in the violent fires. We had no belongings left Emelie's recollections of escape and rescue Here follows an excerpt from

Emelie's handwritten text, in my free translation from the original Swedish. The period referred to is from 8 April to 17 April 1945. What Emelie writes is of course also my own story.

QUOTE 

On 8 April, I and my three children took the local train from our Neschwitz railway station to Berlin, a three-hour ride. But Allied air raids obliged the train to stop. All the passengers had to scatter, and we waited for several hours until the train could continue. 

In Berlin we witnessed how severely bombed the city was. We reached the Swedish Church and were taken to its school where we slept on the floor. We were given food to eat, a porridge sweetened with red lingonberries, vattgröt med lingon. 

After a few days in Berlin we joined an old and poor-looking Red Cross White Bus that had arrived from the Swedish Consulate in Hamburg and was on its way to Lübeck. It was an adventurous trip for us women and our children. 

Thirty kilometres short of Lübeck our bus broke down. It was April and cold, everyone was freezing. The driver offered us to eat, half a kilo butter and Swedish crisp bread, knäckebröd. All the children were malnourished. They suffered from dreadful skin abscesses on their bums and legs and were barely able to walk. In Lübeck we slept in a school. Medical staff drained and bandaged our skin abscesses. 

With my three young children I was given priority for departure with the White Busses. Aboard a slowly moving bus we proceeded from Lübeck to the German-Danish border at Flensburg/Aabenraa. The white colour and the huge red cross painted on the sides and on the roof identified the busses as health service vehicles that must be kept safe from bombing. 

Arriving at Aabenraa in Denmark we were too tired take in the new kind of freedom. The Red Cross health and food reception point took care of us. A medical doctor told me that in Sweden the children’s skin abscesses would soon clear. She was right. The same day our White Busses continued to Copenhagen where they left us. We stayed overnight. Although tired the drivers of the White Busses immediately turned around and drove to Germany for yet another rescue of interns from the camps and their transfer to safety. 

On 17 April a Danish ferryboat sailed us from Copenhagen to Malmö. During the crossing across the Öresund Straight we again underwent health checks. A Swedish female doctor addressed me, “why would a Swedish woman ever marry a German man?” My response that I married several years before the war prompted the doctor to say, “oh well then”. I noticed not a single trace of empathy that we had lived through the entire five years of the war. I never forgot this unpleasant person. 

Late evening that day we arrived in Malmö, were the Lottas, lottorna, met us. The Lottas were the Swedish Women’s Voluntary Defence Organization. A Swedish bus now drove us south to Falsterbohus, a hotel at seaside Falsterbo. Since we had no luggage whatsoever the Lottas gave us clothes and shoes. We were offered tea and sandwiches, smörgåsar, and were shown to large rooms with bunk beds dressed with rough paper sheets to sleep on. The next day the children were allowed to play outside in the Falsterbo sand dunes, under the watch of Swedish soldiers, for we were held in quarantine and not yet free. 

UNQUOTE 

Refugees but safe 

From Emelie’s further writings one learns that a few days later we left Falsterbo for new arrivals of former camp interns were expected there. We were bussed to a school in the township of Bjärnum in north-east Skåne County where we remained in quarantine together with many other refugee women and children, some of whom speaking other languages than ours. 

On 1 May a few ladies from the local Housewife Association came to greet us from outside the barbed wires. They sang Swedish songs and threw bunches of yellow daffodils over the barbed wire. The thoughtfulness of this gesture of solidarity was appreciated by all. 

The outbreak of measles in Bjärnum hastened the clearance of our visa and health papers. As a result on 2 May 1945 we, Emelie and her three daughters, became freed. We were free to continue our travel, now by night train to the intended destination, Nyköping, near Stockholm, where relatives would meet. 

So, we were free in Sweden. Untold numbers of difficulties remained to be solved. The WWII ended five days later on 7 May 1945. Erik, my father, became a prisoner of war by the British, was interned in starving Belgium, and was released about a year later. His health was broken from having taken part in two world wars. Yet, he lived on for 25 years, until 1971. 

Thoughts 

My reflections on this period of my life recall the many urgent challenges of post-war hardships that awaited us, like recovering from poor nutrition and ill health, re-settlement, and shaping a viable economic life. Psychological trauma support could have been beneficial. But in 1945 such was not available there. 

It is clear that the memories of the dramatic rescue by the White Busses stay with us, whether consciously or not, locked within our neural systems. When discussed, tears may easily flow and our nerves may shake, just as they did in those days. 

As an interim help to our family, we the three children were offered recovery time with Swedish families. I was placed with the family of a Lutheran Minister near Skara, Västergötland County, quite far from Nyköping. It turned out that those closely involved, my own family and the Minister’s family, agreed that the best for me would be to continue living with the Minister’s until I would become of school-age at 7 years. I would then return to my own family. Being raised by this wonderful family for six years was a time filled with love, warmth and safety, learning of plants, animals and much more in the bucolic countryside where the post-war difficulties were barely known. I remain endlessly grateful for those happy childhood years. 

As an adult I knew the immense value of the rescue by the Red Cross White Busses which gave me the chance to grow up in a free and democratic society. 

War is devastating for everyone involved, there is no way to find anything heroic about war. I wanted to devote my life to efforts for Peace. To Peace, in any possible form of its many complexities. My hopes came true when I was hired to contribute to development programmes for children. From then I worked many years internationally with UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund. 

Malmö, April 2026 

Franziska von Vietinghoff 

franziskavv@gmail.com 

PS: My talk at the Faculty of Law of Lund University led to some fascinating discoveries which I find of interest to mention: 

• Professor Jeutner, the organizer of the event, remembered his grandfather’s story that he was at the Anhalter Banhhof in Berlin just after it was bombed. Curiously, he was one whom we might have run into when we arrived at that railway station. A special bonding with Dr Jeutner over time and generations. 
• A History Research Professor was excited to find more for her research. She had been unaware of the importance of the Lottas, the Swedish Women’s Voluntary Defence Organization. In addition, as a longtime resident of Falsterbo she was stunned to hear for the first time that the Falsterbohus served as a reception point. That is where our first stay in safety was.