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attacks, our group of internees increased very
rapidly, and soon our task was to care for about one
thousand American and- English pilots who could
not return to their bases after their missions, but
who had been forced to land on Swedish soil. It was
during this work that I first encountered the various
conventions dealing with such questions. Regulations
about internment are very vague in these
conventions, and they leave quite a lot of freedom for
interpretation. Certainly it was intended that military
personnel should be interned in well-guarded camps,
but certain clauses allowed the authorities discretion
to provide the interned greater freedom of
movement. Soon the Swedish public became critical. Why
were internees from certain countries allowed greater
freedom than those of other nationalities? Also, the
foreign legations inquired as to why the internees
from the different countries were not treated in the
same way. Russian, German and Polish internees
were kept in closed camps under guard, while the
Americans and English were billeted in
boardinghouses and hotels, and enjoyed a great deal of
freedom of movement within a certain defined area.
The Russian authorities, however, said that they
would rather see us follow a strict policy. They did
not want the Russian internees to mix with the
Swedish population. In view of the very negative
attitude taken by the Swedish people toward the
Germans confined here, we also thought it advisable
to restrict them to limited camp areas. As Polish
naval personnel had been in camps from the start,
no change regarding them was considered necessary.
The Swedish population especially criticized the
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