Den medicinska spärren
Den medicinska spärren: Smitta och gränsarbete i skuggan av Förintelsen (The Medical Barrier: Contagion and Border Work in the Shadow of the Holocaust) by Britta Zetterström Geschwind, Markus Idvall and Fredrik Nilsson. Makadam Förlag, 2023.
Den medicinska spärren is the first systematic study of the UNRRA operation, which involved the evacuation of more than 9,000 survivors from Bergen-Belsen to Sweden in the summer of 1945. The action was the first large-scale international humanitarian operation after the war. The book examines the medical barrier established by Swedish authorities in order to prevent epidemics from being brought into the country with the survivors.
The reader gets to follow the everyday work of doctors, nurses and counsellors, which included close physical examinations, DDT treatments and checks on the survivors’ sexual health. The treatments began in the Swedish Transit Hospital in Lübeck and continued at reception stations, quarantines, emergency hospitals and reception centres around Sweden. Although the authors mainly highlight the work of the Swedish staff, the survivors are not regarded as passive victims. The book shows that survivors, to varying degrees developed tactics that in some cases challenged the ability of doctors, nurses and counsellors to control the work.
The material consists of, among other things, official documents and correspondence from Swedish and British authorities and UNRRA, but also diaries, letters, memoirs and daily and evening newspapers are used. In addition to this, photographs contribute to an in-depth picture of the medical borderline work.
The book consists of three parts. Part 1 focuses on the work of the Swedish Transit Hospital in Lübeck. Part 2 discusses the work in reception stations, quarantines and emergency hospitals around the country. In Part 3, attention is focused on camp camps, with a focus on how the survivors’ sexuality, sexual health and morality were subject to measures taken by Swedish authorities.
Fredrik Nilsson