Kommentar från rektor och skolchef Anders Svensson, LM Engströms gymnasium i Göteborg

Hej Bertil, Det har bara varit positiv feedback kring ditt besök. Några röster som uttryckte uppskattning, annars bara tyst instämmande. Varmt tack för att du kom och besökte oss! [Föredrag i Göteorgs domkyrka den 23 januari 2024 för ca 600 gymasieelever med anledning av Förintelsens minnesdag]. Med vänlig hälsning Anders Svensson

Kommentar från Finn Johnsson, Göteborg

Dìtt föredrag var väl disponerat,väl framfört och mycket intressant [Judiska föramlingen i Göteborg den 23 januari]. Fantastiskt att du lyckades avslöja och stoppa judelistan. En sådan skamfläck. Tack för att du står stark i denna hemska antisemitiska värld. Bästa hälsningar Finn

Kommentar från min släkting Claude Origet du Cluzeau, Paris

Dear Bertil, Your book is simulteanously lightening (precise and unquestionnable) but also heartbreaking. It is of course of prime interest for the Swedish people, and it also points out clearly the differences between the positions of the Norvegian and the Dutch during the nazi period. I guess that the fact that Maurice HERRMANN (my paternal grandfather) had brothers and sisters in Germany, with whom he certainly had some postal exchanges, made him aware of the upcoming dangers from the nazis ; furthermore, in years 1935-36, my father (Roger HERRMANN) worked in a bank in Berlin, from which he came back fluent in German, skilled in banking business and surely aware of the upcoming disaster for the Jews. Your book is also pleasantly illustrated with meaningful photos and documents : A choice of illustrations that strengthen the text. Thank you for quoting me on p. 16 ; it is true that "our" parents had a hidden anxiety about the past. Congratulations for this wonderful accomplishment. I'll be happy to see you some time in 2024, and send you my best wishes, to Elisabet and you. Claude

Kommentar från Mike Jackson, Vancover

Hello Bertil, I wanted to send you a message to let you know that I have read your book from cover to cover and want to congratulate you on the tremendous job that you have done, researching the huge amount of material and then putting it together in such a readable document. Reading the book bothered me a lot and opened my eyes wider to some of the evil that prevailed (and still does) not only in Nazi Germany and Sweden but also in other countries in Europe. I have a long list of potential readers wanting to read your book after me including my two daughters, Kristina and Ingrid. As you may have heard from Kristina von Unge, my daughter Kristina visited Sweden with her partner a few weeks ago and they were married in Stockholm by Victor von Unge!!!! They tried to keep the entire event a secret but at age 84, I am nor easily fooled! I wanted to make a couple of comments to you that may provide some additional interesting background material related to your book. You mentioned in your book (p375 if I remember correctly) that Bruno Kreisky, the former Austrian Chancellor, lived in Sweden during the period 1938 - 1946. I have a friend in Victoria, an elderly Jewish lady, who escaped from Vienna as a young child with her family before WWII. They went first to Paris and then to Montreal but she has now lived in Victoria for many years, first with her husband and now as a widow. Her father was a medical doctor in Vienna but he understood that the political system in Austria was looking good for Jewish people and the family left at an early stage. Her name is Lisalotta Dubney today but her family name was Birman and Bruno Kreisky was her uncle! It is really a small world that we live in!! The second point relates to the four years I spent as a research physicist at STFI in Stockholm. At one point, I worked with a Docent from KTH on a couple of technical papers. His name was Ernst Back, formerly Bach, and he had been smuggled out of Gelsen Kirschen, an industrial city in the Ruhr region in Nazi Germany together with his brother, Klas (originally Claus), to Sweden via Denmark by relatives during the early part of the war. Their parents were incarcerated in one of the Nazi concentration camps and sadly did not survive. The two young brothers finished up in an orphanage in Tullgarn, Uppsala which was run by Stina Heyman, the paternal aunt of Eva, Hugo and Kerstin [von Unge]. Ja Bertil, I thought you would find these two items of interest and once again congratulate you on your tremendous effort in putting your book together. It is a masterpiece! With kindest regards to you and Sib! Sincerely, Mike

Max J. Friedman, USA, författare till boken "Painful Joy"

Dear Bertil Thank you for including me on the list for this note. Fortunately, I have read your third edition in English and so finally could better understand your story and the journey your parents took as they and their relatives became eye witnesses to the desperation and worse that became the reality of German Jews such as your parents and relatives. Of course, much of your book also so clearly and sadly documents the pro-German actions by representatives of the Swedish government in limiting the ability of your family to escape to Sweden, except for short periods early in the saga. Your documentary style is meticulous and powerful and so many of the things you say about the survivors of the journey -- and those who did not -- ring true for me as well, even if my story is quite different. Sadly the antisemitism that existed before the war -- more or less everywhere on earth, if I could say it so simply -- was rampant. Of course, accommodations were made in every country depending on the economic and social status that some Jews were able to attain -- but underneath it wasn't enough to save very many of those most threatened (in Europe and Russia). What is so much more worrying is how that antisemitism has seen an overt resurgence around the world, including in the U.S. and Europe. Books like yours must be held up as providing clear documentation and witness of what hate can do -- everywhere and anytime. Congratulations on your research and indeed, I must say, your courage -- to devote so much of the later part of your life to this effort. As someone also touched deeply by the Holocaust -- as well as what came before and even afterwards -- I have also come to understand the importance of serving as a witness -- at least so that our children and grandchildren can learn our stories. I'm afraid that Never Forget for the world no longer has much traction any longer with the rise of authoritarianism and worse everywhere, including in the U.S. So we do what we can with open eyes and wounded but also open hearts. All the very best on this edition, your speaking tours and your resoluteness to sometimes talk truth to power. I hope our paths cross again before too long. Max

To Sweden - the story that was never told. Escaping the Holocaust. New expanded 3rd edition now in English by Bertil Oppenheimer

Dear reader! After some years of hard work, I have now again updated my book "To Sweden – the story that was never told – Escaping the Holocaust" (ISBN: 978-91-8059-571-1), but this time in English (460 pages). The first edition was published in Swedish in 2010 with an expanded edition in 2016 (still also available). New facts have been added over the years and a new chapter on my investigation project "Jewish registers, incitement to racial hatred and the internet”, which was observed in media.I found a number of Jewish registers set up in Sweden.This also leads to a concluding observation on the consequences of anti-Semitic hatred spreading in today’s social media. A little about the content in my book: I was born in 1950 and grew up with my parents and an elder brother in a suburb of Stockholm. At home, German was spoken, since my parents were German Jewish immigrants. My parents, Elli and Kurt, had immigrated to Sweden in 1943. But they told us almost nothing about what had happened to them during the war. It was not until the early decease of my parents that the questions started to accumulate. This is the story about my parents Elli and Kurt Oppenheimer, how they grew up in Frankfurt/Main, were educated, met each other and got married. How life, after Hitler’s takeover of power, gradually changed and eventually forced them to emigrate to the Netherlands, where after the German invasion, they had to go into hiding. You can follow them survive deportation; eventually get an exit visa accepted by Adolf Eichmann and desperately struggle to get a residence permit in Sweden. You will learn what happened to their immediate family and, above all, how in the nick of time they were saved and could be reunited with their relatives in Sweden. The restrictive Swedish refugee policy is illustrated in various ways. There were a few other people who made considerable efforts to save Jews in distress during the war. What happened to the consul Borrero, who from Stockholm issued Ecuadorian passports to Jews in Poland and the Netherlands? The Swedes very likely knew what was going on in Germany. The information was available – but what did the Germany-friendly Swedes want to believe? You can read comments about my book and the lectures I have given in Sweden and abroad. See my blog: www.bertiloppenheimer.blogspot.com. I hope you are interested in reading my new updated book in English. The book can also be a suitable gift for someone who is interested in our dreadful part of history.I would appreciate if you forward this letter to others who might be interested in reading my book. We must never forget! You can order my new book via the link: https://webshop.publit.com/webshop/5008 If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me: bertil.oppenheimer@outlook.com. //Bertil Oppenheimer

Oliver Ticciati, lawyer in London

Dear Bertil I cannot pretend to have read every word of the magnum opus, but I have read a very large chunk of it, and I hardly found a single English solecism; indeed I was most impressed by the English and I enjoyed your rather terse style and the short sentences. When your son Daniel said “It’s beginning to turn into an obsession” he was plainly on target—only someone who was truly obsessional could have unearthed and organised the fabulous number of documents that you have quoted in the book. Certainly it was the fact that I knew you which made much of what you had to say interesting to me. Very best wishes Oliver