The Faith and Actions of Greta Andrén, Missionary to the Jews of Vienna, 1938-1941
Samuel Wenell
Master’s Thesis: 15 ECTS
Supervisor: Håkan Bengtsson
Examinator: Magnus Lundberg
Department of Theology: Studies in Church and Mission History
Autumn Semester 2020
Uppsala University Abstract
In this Master’s thesis, I conduct a micro-historical study of deaconess and missionary Greta Andrén (1909-1971) and her work for Svenska Israelsmissionen, the Swedish Israel Mission, in Vienna during the National Socialist occupation. By examining letters as well as select publications, I try to uncover her motives and how she found meaning in her work, and how this could be seen in relation to the origins of the Mission in the Swedish Low Church awakening and certain apocalyptic views on the Jews. Ultimately, I conclude that “Sister Greta’s” world-view was centred around the children and youth she cared for, because she found in them signs of God’s will, as well as teachers and examples of how a good Christian should relate to the Lord. Her capable personality expressed itself through action, and it was through diligent work that she upheld an everyday world filled with meaningful signs of divinity.
Keywords: Greta Andrén, Svenska Israelsmissionen, Microhistory, Mission History, Vienna, Holocaust, Deaconry, Carlo Ginzburg.
0 Contents
1. Introduction p. 2 1. Purpose and Research Questions p. 2 2. Motivation p. 2 3. Source Material p. 4 2. Background p. 5 1. Gretaïana p. 5 2. Revivalism, Jewish Assimilation and the Beginnings of SIM p. 6 3. SIM Before the First World War p. 8 4. The Jewish People: Enemies, Converts, Signs p. 8 5. SIM in Vienna and Vienna During the National Socialist Era p. 9 6. Summary of Background Section p. 11 3. Earlier Research p. 11 1. The Mosaic Congregation of Stockholm p. 12 2. SIM in Vienna and Its Relationship with the Authorities p. 13 3. Summary of Earlier Research Section p. 16 4. Theory and Method p. 16 1. Theory p. 16 1. What is Microhistory? p. 16 2. The Clue-Centred Paradigm p. 18 3. Quality and Quantity p. 19 4. Scale as Analytical Tool p. 20 5. Microhistory and Narrative p. 21 6. Summary of the Theory Section p. 22 2. Method and Models p. 22 5. Results p. 26 1. 1938: Anschluss, Kristallnacht, “Spontaneous Aryanization” p. 26 2. 1939: War, Deportation, Kindertransporte p. 31 3. 1940: Exhaustion and Further Signs from the Children p. 35 4. 1941: Start of the Holocaust. End of the Operation in Vienna p. 39 5. A Clue from Earlier Research I: Lizzie from Vienna p. 41 6. A Clue from Earlier Research II: The Author Ilse Aichinger p. 43 6. Conclusions p. 44 1. Children as Signs p. 45 2. Signs as Charism p. 46 3. Charisma as Action p. 46 4. Action as Meaning p. 47 7. Sources p. 48 1. Non-Printed Sources p. 48 2. Printed Sources p. 48 3. Electronic Sources p. 49 8. Literature p. 49
1 1. Introduction 1.1. Purpose and Research Questions
The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to trace the faith behind the actions of deaconess Greta Andrén during the National Socialist occupation of Vienna, and to discover how her faith and actions related to one another. This is operationalised as a micro-historical study of her work at Svenska Israelsmissionen (The Swedish Israel Mission, SIM) between the years 1938 and 1941. By comparing the documentation from that station as well as from SIM’s headquarters in Stockholm with texts published by Andrén, I hope to see what her brand of faith meant when it bore fruit in her everyday life. In filling this purpose, I utilise the following questions:
1. What were Greta Andréns everyday tasks in Vienna? 2. What meaning, and what signs of God, did she find in them? 3. How did Andrén express her faith though her actions? 4. How did Andrén’s relationships with her clients matter to her faith, and vice versa?
1.2. Motivation
I have chosen to write about Vienna because the Swedish missionaries themselves saw it as the capital of European Jewry, and spent considerable sums on its activities compared to other parts of SIM’s work. It was also one of the few places were SIM was able to operate during the Second World War and the Holocaust, and it was there that its influence was perhaps the greatest. Furthermore, although true at earlier times as well, the Jews and the Jewish converts to Christianity were especially vulnerable during the occupation, and thus to a greater extent at the mercy of SIM and its operatives. When the Jews were truly in the hands of SIM, the latter’s agenda was made manifest in an undeniable way. At the end of this study, we will hopefully see what truly mattered to Greta Andrén in a time of crisis and how she found justification for their actions in her faith. Why, then, would this be of interest? First of all, there is some scholarly relevance to a study of the Swedish missionary movement and its work and relationship with the Jewish people. As will be shown below, though there exists research surrounding SIM as an organization and Greta Andrén as a person, there is still some work to be done regarding their activities during the Second World War. As the archives containing many
2 precious pages of source material have only fairly recently been opened, they are underexploited and there is much potential in comparing the results of studying them with research on missionary theology and Christian-Jewish relations in other countries. Secondly, there is an interreligious, theological, and potentially political relevance to a study such as the present one. The postwar version of SIM, the Swedish Theological Institute in Jerusalem, was founded by some of the people in this study, including Greta Andrén. The Institute is a vital party in the interreligious dialogue between Christians and Jews, and adding details to its history should be of obvious relevance. Apart from the ethical aspect of not choosing an object of study with living relatives (although such people will be present in the thesis), there are three major reasons for choosing to focus on Greta Andrén. She was a core figure of SIM for over 40 years, from 1934 to her retirement and death in 1971. Adding pieces to the development of her life will incidentally add pieces to the development of SIM itself and to that of Jewish-Christian relations. As she was a deaconess and a person of strong faith, but not a theologian, it is possible to see through her the putting into practice of a religious thought, as she can be argued to have been kept up to date with the theological debate of her day (she wrote texts for journals and books where theological questions were considered, and spoke extensively at meetings with the same purpose). Adding to the wealth of literature and correspondence she left behind her, she was very much a practical and headstrong person. Not only her words but also her actions have left behind traces and it is therefore reasonable to focus on her when aiming to see both theory and practice of a given strain of faith. Finally, adding both these reasons together we find a third, namely that Andrén had a major influence on both SIM itself as on other actors. There are anecdotes of her forceful personality being directed inwards, to her superiors, as well as outwards, to Nazi guards and bureaucrats, or to a broader Swedish public. I thus conclude that she is the best choice for a study such as the present one. But why focus on only one person? Why not write the story of the entire staff at SIM during the time of the Second World War? Because meaning varies from individual to individual, and most of the other individuals involved in this story did not leave behind them as many clues with which to enter their worlds. It would be possible to include them, but this would make the study unwieldy, and Greta Andrén’s story is in a sense a closed system, it is a clearly delineated topic, that I hope to supplement in the future with further studies of the entire staff of SIM.
3 1.3. Source Material
In order to approach the everyday world of Greta Andrén properly I would have to use all material left behind by her and her colleagues. That would however require more time and space than I have been allotted for the writing of this thesis, and so I can only downsize the study and hope for the opportunity to conduct another one, a bigger and better one, in the future. I have chosen two sources to work with: The texts of Greta Andrén and sometimes others in Missionstidning för Israel (Missionary Journal for Israel, MFI) between 1938 and 1941 – the year of the Anschluss and the year of Andréns departure from Vienna. These texts, however, were a polished version of Andrén’s world, and to find as many clues as possible of the life behind the texts, I turn to the correspondence between the missionary station in Vienna and the SIM headquarters in Stockholm, also between the years 1938 and 1941. My reason for choosing the texts in the Missionary Journal are the following: First of all, they contain descriptions of Greta Andrén’s activities at Seegasse, such as the Children’s circle or the caritative work with the poor. Second of all they contain those of her reasons for, and that of the meaning behind, her actions that she was willing to present to the public. That is, not only do I get some reasons and meaning surrounding her everyday world, but also her want with regards to reason and meaning. The missionaries at SIM were shrewd media workers, and finding out how Greta Andrén wanted to portray herself and the mission in public therefore gives me a clue about how she wanted to be seen – who and what she wanted to be. This, however, gives only half the picture, if even that. I choose the correspondence with Stockholm as my other source because I hope it will contain details of a kind that would not be deemed important enough for a missionary journal. Such “unimportant” details could very well give me insight into Andréns everyday world in a way that “important” official documents could not. In addition to this, the correspondence would likely contain details not fit for publication, such as conflicts or failures which certainly make up important parts of a person’s life. Letters to a superior is a genre of its own, and there might certainly be ambitions beyond merely giving a neutral description of one’s activities present in such a letter. The correspondence must therefore be viewed critically, and not merely as the truth behind an image projected outwards. Furthermore, I have had to restrict myself to a subset of the letters, namely, those addressed to the missionary headquarters in general, and not to the director Birger Pernow or any other authority personally. Nonetheless, it is almost always Pernow who receives and replies to the letters sent to Stockholm. It could very well be argued that the more personal letters, which would contain a
4 greater wealth of information, would be addressed directly to the director. I have chosen the more general category of letters hoping that they will contain information about a wider set of topics, as well as more everyday topics, which can be expected to fall under a general category and not under the special category of direct communication with the missionary director. Greta Andrén published texts outside of the Missionary Journal as well, most notably the somewhat fictionalized version of events at Seegasse called A Letter from Christ – Gerty Fischer. Fischer was a Jewish-Christian woman with whom Andrén had extensive contact, and who seems to have sent Andrén letters from imprisonment. It is perhaps the most important work Andrén wrote, as it was not only a highly intimate story, in a sense, but also because it was widely spread and made Andrén a popular lecturer after its publication. Nonetheless, I have chosen to exclude it as well as other publications of Andrén outside of MFI. There is no brilliant scientific reasoning behind this decision, only one of labour economics. A Letter from Christ would be enough source material for another thesis – or a chapter in a dissertation – and I must leave it to another investigation. I hope that the material I have gathered for the present text will prove to be enough for its purposes.
2. Background
In this background section, I aim to show not only the organizational roots of Svenska Israelsmissionen, but also the ideas surrounding it, hoping to find kernels of knowledge useful in interpreting the everyday world of Greta Andrén. It will also hopefully become evident to the reader that there is reason to write complementary studies about individuals within SIM, and also missionary stations or projects.
2.1. Gretaïana
Greta Andrén arrived in Vienna late in 1934. She was 25 years old, and would live to the age of 62, passing away on the last day of October 1971, the same year she retired from her service as matron of the Swedish Theological Institute in Jerusalem. In the founding of that institute, she proved to be instrumental, both in acquiring its house at Prophet’s Street in Jerusalem, and in managing its day-to-day maintenance as well as receiving visitors.1 Andrén felt the calling to become a deaconess already at the age of twelve. However, she never gave any particular thought to missionary work until reading a letter by a missionary to China,
1 See Carmesund (2010).
5 Pastor Stig Hannerz, as an adult. Hannerz had been the director of a deaconess institute, and when he first felt God calling him to missionary work he resisted. Greta Andrén found that the story of his gradual acceptance of the calling spoke to her.2 “Sister Greta” experienced great sorrow early in her life: Her father, a fish merchant, died shortly before her confirmation, and her best friend passed away in tuberculosis as she was about to graduate from secondary education.3 What effect this had on her choice to become a deaconess and missionary, and her carrying out of those roles, we can only speculate. Hailing from the coastal town of Marstrand in western Sweden, Andrén studied at Gothenburg’s college after finishing secondary school. Her subjects were “two modern languages and Hebrew”4, and she went on to the Bräckö Deaconess Institute, also in Gothenburg, where she was trained as a nurse for three years. It was only when she moved to Stockholm to work at the Ersta hospital, that she seems to have found the Jewish people as a possible object of missionary work – she cared for a one or two Jewish patients daily.5 In 1934 she visited SIM’s director Birger Pernow to inquire about the possibility of her engaging in work regarding the Jews. Pernow writes that she was about to finish her education and needed to choose her path in life. She had prayed to the Lord for guidance, and found it in her conversation with Pernow, who informed her that he had been asking God to send a deaconess for a long time. Convinced that this was a sign from the Lord, Andrén asked her widowed mother for permission to work abroad, and, receiving it, moved to Vienna.6 Andréns profession and calling were not just expressed in an employment, but by becoming consecrated as a deaconess and a missionary. Again, exactly what consecration meant to her is up for speculation, but I would argue that it connected her actions to her faith in a more direct way than for the average person – being consecrated, she had to be a sign of her church and the task she had been given. For as practical a position as that of a deaconess, this sign can reasonably be argued to be made up of actions.
2.2. Revivalism, Jewish Assimilation, and the Beginnings of SIM
The roots of the Swedish missionary movement to the Jews lie in the “Low Church” revival, tracing its origins to the German pietists, mentioning Philipp Spener and Johann Heinrich
2 Carmesund (2010), p. 117. 3 Greta Ebba Sofia Andrén, www.skbl.se/sv/artikel/GretaEbbaSofiaAndren, Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon (article by Håkan Bengtsson), visited 2021-02-04. 4 Carmesund (2010), p. 117. 5 Carmesund (2010), p. 117. 6 Pernow (1973), p. 12.
6 Callenberg. In Sweden, missionary efforts began with Johann Christian Moritz, who took up residence in Gothenburg between 1843 and 1868. He undertook several travels to Stockholm, Copenhagen and Hamburg, but found little success in Scandinavia. Few baptisms of Jews took place, as far as the available sources tell. Moritz espoused millenarianist and apocalypticist thought, and targeted the Talmud as well as “anti-Christians”.7 This gave rise to a resistance among the Jews, as the leaders of the Mosaic Congregation of Stockholm were afraid that poorer Jews would be persuaded to convert as a means to enter Swedish mainstream society. Ultimately, however, ordinary assimilation was far more relevant than active missionary work.8 Per Hammarström underscores the importance of restrictions on Jews entering certain professions, as well as the prohibition of marriage between faiths, the former being eased from the 1830’s, and the latter being legalised in 1863. Starting in the 1870’s, the conversions of Swedish Jews to Christianity plummeted, as the legal pressure to do so had dissipated.9 Moritz moved in the same circles as, and befriended, C. O. Rosenius, Peter Fjellstedt,10 and G. E. Beskow. Beskow wrote on his travels in Egypt and the Holy Land, which culminated in a visit to Jerusalem and the statement that the Jewish diaspora was a direct punishment for the rejection of the Lord’s Messiah.11 He expressed apocalyptic views as he interpreted his surroundings: the Jewish people would return to their homeland when they accepted Jesus Christ as their Messiah, but until then, they would suffer as the Lord exacted his vengeance on them. The popularity of his book contributed to the missionary movement by focusing the engagement of the revivalists on Egypt and Palestine, and from there, the Jews.12 The denial of the Messiah and the suffering of the Jews was perceived as just by many actors in the milieu of Swedish revival Christianity both during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It found a perfect metaphor in the Wandering Jew, a motif who returns in literature produced by SIM and affiliated organisations. The true Israelite, however, would turn to Jesus Christ and thus fulfil his role in God’s salvation.13 Thus we can see that a mission to the Jews was on the agenda of the Swedish revival movement more than fifty years before Greta Andrén arrived in Vienna. It was not a fringe phenomenon but associated with that movement’s core members. From the very start ideas regarding the Jews as
7 Edvardsson (1976), pp. 11-14, quotes from p. 14. 8 Hammarström (2014a). 9 See Hammarström (2020). 10 The influence of Peter Fjellstedt on Swedish missionary work is difficult to overstate, but according to Hammarström, his encouragement of a mission to the Jews is lesser known, even though he wrote several texts on this topic. (Hammarström 2014b:128). 11 Hammarström (2014b), p. 127. 12 Gustafsson (1984), pp. 37-42. 13 Besserman (1991), pp. 53-54, 56.
7 rejectors of the Lord and their suffering being just were expressed by leading figures, and these ideas remained relevant at least until the outbreak of the First World War. 2.3. SIM Before the First World War
It was the co-worker of Beskow, August Lindström, who founded Missionstidning för Israel and published the first number in 1874. He was its editor for twenty years, a post he initially shared with the founder of Svenska Missionsförbundet. A year after its founding, the journal had drawn enough donations to it for a proper missionary society to be established. It was Lindström who called the founding meeting of SIM in 1975, and who became its first director, with Sebastian Tham as chairman. Initially, the society funded missionaries from other countries, but a home for Jewish- Christian proselytes opened in Stockholm in 1881.14 Several missionary travels were undertaken, to, for instance, Lebanon, Galicia, Bukovina, and the Caucasus, with some cities mentioned being Jassy, Odessa, Budapest and Tbilisi. This carried on during the last two decades of the 19th century and throughout the first two of the 20th, until the First World War gradually cut off all possibilities of missionary travels. The farthest missionary journey during this 40-year-period reached Persia.15
2.4. The Jewish People: Enemies, Converts, Signs
Hammarström points to a characterization during the period 1874-1885 of Jews as completely dominated by the Talmud, which made them inoculated to Christianity. Success in converting Jews to Christianity was based on overcoming the Talmud. Throughout the Missionary Journal for Israel, the Talmud represented all that was bad with Judaism: “Man’s inventions, superstition, self- righteousness, and hatred of Christianity.”16 The Pharisee was brought up as a constant stereotype, and the fanatical “Talmud Jew” was contrasted with the godless Reform Jew who was the originator of nihilism and anti-Christianity.17 Anna Besserman has shown that this view remained in the Low Church awakening into the 20th century, a view of Judaism as a legalistic, Pharisaic obsession with the Talmud, which was a hindrance between the Jew and Christianity. The Talmud was not only legalistic, it also taught how one was to circumvent the law, which Besserman calls “unforgivable”.18 The emancipation of the Jews was both a blessing and a curse according to SIM and the awakening movement at large. A text in the Missionary Journal from 1881 is quoted, stating: 14 Pernow (1945), pp. 7-9. 15 Ibid., pp. 10-11, 14-17. 16 Hammarström (2014b)., pp. 130-31. Quote on p. 130. 17 Ibid., p. 135. 18 Besserman (1991)., pp. 58-59, quote on page 59.
8 “Perhaps [we have] granted them more power than we should have given away.”19 Jews are accused of dominating “the capital and the press”.20 Jewish influence on society was considerable but without the guiding light of Christianity. In many areas of public life, such as art or politics, the Jewish power made itself felt and among the people of the awakening movement there was a fear for this power.21 This can be seen in the context brought forth by Göran Gunner, who points out that the Jews were seen as important actors or at least signs in many strains of apocalyptic thought. Some revivalist authors saw in the Jewish people tools or agents of the Antichrist, who used their growing power and the success of Zionism to promote atheism and decadence. Others took the same development as proof of the Jewish people reclaiming its status as the foremost subject of history, a status they had lost to the Christians after rejecting Christ.22 Thus, if the Jews were taken to be signs of the Second Coming, their emancipation could be seen in a positive light, but if one thought them to herald evil or to actively prepare it, emancipation was a threat.
2.5. SIM in Vienna and Vienna During the National Socialist Era
After the war, in 1920, Jewish convert to Christianity Johannes Ginsburg was sent to Vienna to ascertain the possibility of founding a station in that city. Ginsburg already had an established history as a missionary and had concluded, that the 200 000 Jews of Vienna were not only plentiful but also powerful, and that the international Jewry paid special attention to events in and ideas from the Austrian capital, especially, perhaps, when it came to the Zionist cause. Vienna was a major point of emigration to the Holy Land, and there were few active missionary societies in the city at that time. That Ginsburg had passed by Vienna accidentally during his travels between Wrocław (at this time Prussian Breslau), Poland, Prague, and Budapest was seen as divine providence. It is not entirely clear why Ginsburg stayed for a while in Vienna, but it is implied to have to do with political circumstances – the road between Wrocław and Poland is mentioned as “impassable”.23 Ginsburg was joined by Martha Hellmann and Anna Karlsson, both Christians of Jewish origin, in 1921, and the building at Seegasse 16 was purchased in 1922. Its first priest was Arnold Schalin from Finland, but the leadership of the station along with other staff shifted the following decade. The source of stability was missionary director Birger Pernow in Stockholm, who took over this position on the first of December 1930. Greta Andrén arrived in Vienna in December 1934, making her the person who had worked at the station the longest during the time I will write about here 19 Hammarström (2014b), p. 133. 20 Ibid., p. 135. 21 Besserman (1991), pp. 67-70. 22 Gunner (1996), pp. 78-95. 23 Ibid., pp. 17-18, quote on page 18.
9 (Jewish-Christian priest Friedrich Forell left Vienna for Prague and ultimately Paris in 1938 as a result of antisemitic persecution. He had previously escaped Germany for the same reason.) The main cast was completed by deaconess Anna-Lena Peterson, and Pastors Göte Hedenquist and Johannes Ivarsson. Supplementary roles were played by Seth Asklund, Göte Kronwall and Johannes Jellinek. Peterson arrived in 1938 and was put in charge of a youth-, retirement-, and summer home in Weidling. Hedenquist was second-in-command at the station from the first of October 1936, and when Friedrich Forell fled the city in 1938, he was made head of the mission. His deputy pastor was first Seth Asklund for six months, then Göte Kronwall for another six, and thereafter Johannes Ivarsson. When Göte Hedenquist left Vienna in March 1940 to assume the post of vicar in his home parish, Ivarsson was made the last leader of the mission before its shutting down, with Johannes Jellinek as his deputy.24 At this time, Vienna was filled with a popular antisemitic resentment, which the National Socialist authorities had to rein in on numerous occasions. This was not rooted as much in ideology as it was an economic strategy on part of the worker and lower middle classes. The Jews were perceived as a legitimate target for expropriation as they were thought to profit from the misery of “Aryans”, especially during the war.25 The perception of Jewish wealth and power would thus lead both to SIM establishing a station in Vienna and to the potential for the Jews to become the object of persecution. After the Anschluss, pogrom-like plundering took place to such an extent that the new authorities feared it would hamper their plans for Vienna. Despair gripped the Jewish population, and many turned to suicide. Jews were singled out and made vulnerable by measures such as mandatory Hebrew lettering on all Jewish-owned shops. Schools dismissed Jewish pupils, and Jews were banned from several white-collar professions. This was all done within the first year of Nazi occupation.26 This so-called “spontaneous Aryanization” forced the authorities to facilitate the removal of Jews from the economy on behalf of Aryans, with the property of foreign Jews being left alone until the outbreak of war.27 In November, just after the Kristallnacht, the public and the authorities together aimed to expel Jews from their homes in order to solve the housing problems Vienna faced. As 1938 drew to a close, 44 000 Jewish homes were occupied, and 26 000 were waiting for the same to happen to them.28
24 Jellinek (195? [sic]), pp. 25, 27, 29, 31, 33. 25 Botz (2016), p. 186. 26 Botz (2016), pp. 188-91. 27 Botz (2016), pp. 191-93. 28 Botz (2016), p. 193, 195.
10 A policy of forced emigration was implemented throughout the period, which was an economic challenge or impossibility for many Jews. As part of this, Adolf Eichmann created the Central Office for Jewish Emigration. One month after its foundation in August 1938, the Office facilitated the emigration of almost 10 000 people, the high point of its history. It was a relevant cog in the machinery until the end of November 1939, when the Second World War made emigration more and more difficult. At this point, 126 445 Jews had left Vienna through the Office.29
2.6. Summary of Background Section
When our story begins Greta Andrén had been in Vienna for about three years (December 1934 – March 1938). She was already convinced of her calling and had been consecrated as a deaconess and a missionary after studying languages and nursery. Her organization, SIM, was part of a movement with apocalyptic tendencies, where the Jewish people were often seen as signs of God’s plan. Jews were also thought to suffer as a result of denying the Christ. The missionaries found the Talmud to be a dangerous enemy, and Jews were often seen as either Pharisaic or godless. In Vienna, antisemitism was not a religious issue but an economic one, where the population drove the Nazi party before themselves in order to remove their Jewish neighbours from the economy. To force the Jews out of Vienna and Austria, Adolf Eichmann created the Central Office for Jewish Emigration. The pauperised and hated Jews increasingly lost hope for their future, and many chose to take their own lives.
3. Earlier Research
Research related to this study is mostly centred on the actions of the Swedish government, the Moasic congregation of Stockholm, and SIM itself. In the following, the government will take the back seat, and I will focus on the Mosaic congregation and SIM. This is because the congregation had a vital influence on refugee cases, and the research thereof gives more information regarding practical work with refugees than research about the government.30 What is relevant to know about the Swedish government is that its response to Jewish refugees trying to enter the country was directed by the foreign ministry, (Utrikesdepartementet, UD), the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen), and the Swedish Immigration Bureau (Utlänningsbyrån). However, the Mosaic congregation of Stockholm also became a central actor in the aiding of refugees. I will now
29 Botz (2016), p. 194. 30 If the reader wishes to learn more about the Swedish government and the Holocaust, I recommend especially Koblik (1988), and also Levine (1998) and Lindberg (1973).
11 briefly present the research on their activities before moving on to research relating more directly to SIM, in order for the former to contextualise the latter. 3.1. The Mosaic Congregation of Stockholm
Pontus Rudberg argues that the congregation did more to help Jews flee to Sweden than the Swedish government did. In 1940 the congregation was involved in four quotas for Jewish refugees: One quota for 300 chaluzim, Zionist pioneers who received agricultural training in Sweden before moving to Palestine;31 one quota for 500 children;32 one quota for transmigration; and one quota for a boarding school, Kristinehov, in southern Sweden. In practice, the Mosaic congregation functioned as a referent to the National Board, and was allowed to manage applications for refugee status and entrance into the country. It tried to increase the quotas, but encountered a problem: the Swedish authorities refused to view “racial refugees” as political refugees. Legally, the two categories were the same, but the Board chose to follow and implement a restrictive policy.33 According to Paul Levine, the UD staffers were aware that being a Jew in Germany meant being a victim of political violence, and an internal debate took place, but ultimately a restrictive course was decided upon.34 This blocking had its roots in several phenomena, not the least of which was a fear of Eastern European Jewish immigration that had been around in Sweden since at least the 1920’s.35 However, as soon as Norwegian Jews were targeted after the invasion in 1942, UD began to react and negotiate for Jewish lives36 The congregation sent along 68 percent of its 452 cases to the National Board, which encompassed a total of 787 people. This is to be compared to the 55 percent of Jewish refugees granted entry by the Immigration Bureau between 1938 and 1941.37 The congregation tried to maximise the success of their work by sending along desirable cases. The categories of refugees who were accepted to a greater extent than 50 percent were professionals or craftsmen, industrial labourers, engineers, physicians, or else people of greater wealth or of higher-paid professions, as they were expected to be eligible for entry into other countries, for instance the USA, later on. Women, the elderly, and single applicants also had better chances of acceptance. Retail and office workers, domestic help, free professionals and the like were accepted to a lesser extent than 50
31 The chaluzim and their history in Sweden is dealt with in Thor Tureby’s dissertation (2005). 32 These children were given permission to stay in Sweden for two years, a period which could be extended if their parents were unable to join them. The aim was still to move the refugees on to a third country. See Rudberg (2017), p. 84. 33 Rudberg (2008), pp. 219-221. 34 Levine (1998), pp. 102-103. 35 This fear also features heavily in Lindberg (1973). 36 Levine (1996), p. 134. 37 Rudberg (2008), p. 221.
12 percent, presumably because they were both less likely to gain entrance into a third country and because the risk of them being a burden on the Swedish public welfare was perceived to be greater.38 The congregation was also involved in the material help of Jews by Jews, in the form of food and clothing packages. Packages were sent both through Jewish and non-Jewish organizations, SIM being among the latter.39 Furthermore, the congregation founded homes for children together with private initiatives, such as a boy’s home in Uppsala and a rural one in Stigbo outside of Stockholm. At some if not many of these homes, Jewish customs were not observed, but Christian and Swedish holidays were celebrated.40 It is clear that the leadership of the congregation during the war was torn by a “double loyalty” - they wished to help Jewish refugees and at the same time prove to be loyal or patriotic Swedes who did what was best for the country, meaning there was some doubt or aversion towards working for the immigration of foreigners who might not be able to support themselves or who would otherwise not fit well into Swedish society.41 From this part of the earlier research, the most relevant thing to remember is the types of refugees who had a greater chance of acceptance from the Swedish authorities and of support from the Mosaic congregation. That the Swedish state found it urgent to move migrants along to other countries is also relevant, as well as the four quotas which the congregation was involved in.
3.2. SIM in Vienna and Its Relationship With the Authorities
As part of his critical work The Stones Cry Out, Stephen Koblik touches upon the actions of SIM. The somewhat fragmentary book deals with most actors within Sweden with regards to the Holocaust and the Jewish refugees. Koblik asks and answers a very important question to the benefit of this thesis: How much did they know? And as it turns out, SIM was one of the most important sources of information to the Church of Sweden and perhaps all of Sweden regarding the persecution of the Jews. This was both before and after the missionary station in Vienna was shut down. At least as early as 1939, SIM personnel predicted that all of Europe’s Jews would be wiped out – whether the National Socialists allowed their emigration or not.42 During the Holocaust, both missionaries and other staffers were aware of what was going on, and walked a careful line between helping Jews and aggravating the German authorities. Similar conclusions are reached by Per 38 Rudberg (2008), pp. 223-26. 39 Rudberg (2013), p, 267. 40 Rudberg (2017), p. 111. 41 See Hansson (2004). 42 Koblik (1988), p. 93.
13 Frohnert and Hans Lindberg, respectively.43 Aid was always given with missionary activity in mind – although its employees wished to help Jews, it was undeniably the case that help also meant saving their souls by turning them to Christianity. Koblik describes how SIM, after the German war machine pushed back Soviet authority and thus state-mandated atheism in Eastern Europe, immediately began conducting missionary work. He also writes: “In the final days of the Polish ghettos and amidst the refugees who fled to Sweden, SIM attempted to sustain an ambitious religious program.”44 Another matter is that of SIM’s relationship with the authorities in Nazi-occupied Vienna. This includes Göte Hedenquist’s relationship with Adolf Eichmann. It is clear, according to Lars Edvardsson, that the leadership and operatives of SIM felt that its activities in Vienna were threatened from the first day of the Anschluss. They had monitored the situation in Germany closely ever since 1933, and a steady stream of German refugees came to Vienna beginning that year. The Gestapo was continuously somewhat suspicious of SIM, and Seegasse 16 was raided twice during the period discussed here, once by the SA and once by Gestapo. Missionary director Birger Pernow flew to Vienna the day after the first raid, which came only one week into the occupation. Together with Göte Hedenquist, he managed to retrieve the confiscated valuables and even succeeded in getting SIM exempt from the ban on meetings.45 Edvardsson points out that SIM enjoyed a good relationship with the authorities as “the Nazi’s short-term plans for the Jews at least until the outbreak of the war consisted of getting as many as possible as quickly as possible out of the German area.”46 However, Edvardsson does not mention Adolf Eichmann, but Koblik does. In the wake of the Anschluss, SIM in Vienna was organized into three sections: one for leadership and religious work, one for aid, and one for migration. “Already in late 1938 Pastor Hedenquist met with Eichmann to confirm SIM’s responsibility to help the Jewish Christians of Protestant denominations to emigrate. A mission representative, usually a young man, was placed in Eichmann’s offices.”47 It thus seems undeniable that the co-operation between SIM and the National Socialist authorities was regular and also important to the success of SIM, both in gathering information and keeping the station at Seegasse 16 open for as long as possible. The true motives behind this cooperation will never be found, but it is clear that the facilitation of Jewish refugee cases and help to the poor was made easier by it.
43 Frohnert (2008), p. 243. Lindberg (1972), p. 46. 44 Koblik (1988)., p. 109. 45 Edvardsson (1976), p.88-89. 46 Ibid., p. 90. 47 Koblik (1988), p. 91.
14 Thomas Pammer also writes on the cooperation between SIM and the local authorities. In practice, the emigration work was divided between SIM, who worked with Protestant Jews, the Catholic Church, who worked with Catholic Jews, and the Society of Friends (Quakers). who worked with “non-confessional” Jews. Together these three organizations among other things tried to bring about Jewish emigration to Ecuador, and SIM’s country house in Weidling was temporarily converted to an agricultural training facility during early 1939. This project, which ultimately failed because of the outbreak of war, was supported by Eichmann’s Central Office for Jewish Emigration.48 Pammer quotes Hedenquist regarding the latter’s conduct with the SS-officer. The aim was to make it possible to keep operating in Vienna, and in Eichmann’s hunger for success, Hedenquist found the possibility to do so. The men ultimately had the same goal: Getting Jews out of the city. Pammer writes that this was a conscious strategy – the missionaries knew that open resistance was futile, and that through ostensibly complying with the authorities they were given more opportunities to help Jews. The relationship between SIM and Eichmann is also mentioned briefly by Traude Litzka in her settlement with the Catholic Church regarding their help to the Jews of Vienna.49 At the same time, Pammer does not shy away from calling Hedenquist’s behaviour “complicity in mass murder” - he alleges that Hedenquist wrote in November 1939 to Protestant officials requesting that his missionary workers be given access to lists of baptisms. The workers, who are not named by Pammer, compiled names of all non-Aryans on the lists, many of whom the Nazis had not realized were Jews. The lists made the persecution, deportation and murder of these people possible.50 This is not mentioned elsewhere in the available research, and why any member of SIM would do anything to actively harm Jews is impossible to say. Ultimately, however, this study is not about Göte Hedenquist and his exact actions during the Holocaust must be left to research another time. Pär Frohnert has written on SIM’s refugee aid and the ideas behind it. One important part of this aid was the cooperation with the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden (Svenska Missionsförbundet, SMF), a free church. SMF founded a home in Tostarp, Scania for use by refugees from SIM in agreement with the National Board of Health and Welfare that the home be used for “Pernow’s quota”.51 The economic burden seems to have been carried by SMF whereas SIM kept the official responsibility as well as practical duties. Frohnert exemplifies, stating that SIM’s contribution to the home in Tostarp was “modest.”52 The size of “Pernow’s quota” is not mentioned, but Frohnert writes that SIM managed to get about 300 people into Sweden and about 3000 people to other 48 Pammer (2017), p. 101. 49 Litzka (2018), p. 105. 50 Pammer (2017), p. 102. 51 Frohnert (2008), p. 232. 52 Frohnert (2008), p. 235.
15 countries, starting in 1938. From that year on, SIM was according to Frohnert the only “Jew mission” in the German Reich.53 As others have mentioned, the refusal to see “racial refugees” as political refugees meant “practically closed borders.”54 And as others have mentioned, the view that the Jews had denied the Messiah and must be brought back was kept during the persecution.55 Both SMF and SIM espoused the view that the way out of their vulnerable situation was for the Jews to embrace Christianity.56 It is highly worth noting that Birger Pernow preferred bringing Christian Jews to Sweden, “and leave the Mosaic and Catholic [sic] until further notice.”57 Another researcher, who has dealt with the children who escaped Nazi persecution and came to Sweden, is Ingrid Lomfors. She writes about the Mosaic congregation as well, but has had the opportunity to interview some of those who were among the children who came to Sweden. These interviews are so intimately related to the present study that they will be presented in the concluding section.
3.3. Summary of Earlier Research Section
It is clear from the earlier research that there were several actors in the helping of refugees fleeing the Nazi regime. The Mosaic congregation of Stockholm and SIM were probably the most important ones, especially before 1942, while the Swedish state still maintained a very restrictive position regarding letting Jews into the country. Continuously moving the refugees to third countries remained an important object during the entire period, and was a criteria for many who applied for entry into Sweden. Wealthier Jews, or those with skills thought to make them attractive to other countries, were let into the country more often than others. Children were placed either in families or in homes scattered throughout Sweden. These homes were founded and maintained by the Mosaic congregation in conjunction with private initiatives. SIM and the Mission Covenant Church were also involved in the maintaining of homes. In Vienna, SIM had to be careful to not upset the new authorities after the Anschluss. This lead to a co-operation with Adolf Eichmann and the Central Office for Jewish Emigration, including the stationing of young men from SIM in the Central Office. It is clear that the consequences of this were that SIM was able to keep operating, but it has also been alleged that Göte Hedenquist provided the regime with lists of Protestants of Jewish heritage, enabling their murder.
53 Frohnert (2008), p. 229. 54 Frohnert (2008), p. 228. 55 Frohnert (2008), p. 230. 56 Frohnert (2008), p. 243. 57 Frohnert (2008), p. 243. Every now and then throughout the texts presented here, it become clear that Catholics were not real Christians to many of the staffers at SIM.
16 For the present study, it is most important to note what type of refugees were “desired” in Sweden, as well as the missionaries’ extreme desire to continue their work, even if it meant negotiating with the worst enemies of the Jewish people.
4. Theory and Method 4.1. Theory
4.1.1. What Is Microhistory?
In asking about the everyday life of a person the practical expressions of her beliefs, there is no better way to provide an answer – be it a small and perhaps preliminary one – than to draw upon a discipline engaged with putting together the clues left behind by an actor in order to reconstruct the world she occupied. This is microhistory. It is not a theory or set of theories, but rather a cluster of means and ends. There are different schools within it, most notable, perhaps, being the Italian, German, French and Anglo-Saxon ones. Regardless of origin, microhistorians have from the onset been drawn to the culture and mentality of those who have only rarely left behind written accounts of their lives.58 Because of their roots in the history of mentalities, especially that of the Annales school, the questions asked by microhistorians and their approach to answering them are both already well adapted to a study such as the present one, All historians work with clues in painting a larger picture – microhistorians work with the clues themselves. It does not seek to aggregate its results, but to explore an ordinary world, sometimes in order to find the extraordinary. Such a world is not simply a set of material conditions marinated in a culture which was pushed from the heights of society down throughout its layers – it is a world of impressions and expressions, things and creatures, action and inaction, belief and disbelief, all giving meaning to the being of its inhabitants. It is by its very definition a micro-world, as meaning and the phenomena granting and denying it ultimately cannot be divorced from the network of references that make it up. How, then, does the microhistorian work with these clues?
4.1.2. The Clue-Centred Paradigm
The idea of the clue-centred evidential paradigm comes from Italian microhistorian Carlo Ginzburg. Ginzburg is arguably the most influential microhistorian, not only in the Italian branch of the
58 Carlo Ginzburg’s famous The Cheese and the Worms is a prime example of this, as is Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s Montaillou and Carneval in Romans.
17 tradition but also in the other ones. According to Ginzburg, history ultimately relies on the same technique as the abilities which stem from man’s origin as a hunter. A hunter uses tracks and traces left by his quarry in order to find it and to discern its characteristics. That is, the hunter can see that which is not before his eyes through reconstruction. The same technique is the origin of medicine, divination, and certain methods in art history, but also of the use of fingerprinting in bureaucracy and the structure of the detective story. An example given by Ginzburg is an old story among Middle Eastern peoples about three brothers who encounter a man who has lost his horse. The brothers can give the man a large number of details about the horse, and are therefore dragged in front of a judge accused of stealing it. However, using their abilities to put together clues, the brothers give a splendid account of how they can know many things about the horse and what it carried without ever having seen it.59 Another highly influential microhistorian, Giovanni Levi, acknowledges Ginzburg’s position and puts his paradigm at the centre of micro-historical writing, stating:
The micro-historical approach addresses the problem of how we gain access to knowledge of the past by means of various clues, signs and symptoms. This is a procedure which takes the particular as its starting-point (a particular which is often highly specific and individual, and would be impossible to describe as a typical case) and proceeds to identify its meaning in the light of its own specific context.60
In this study, I aim to use clues left behind by Greta Andrén and others in order to reconstruct her everyday world. Actual descriptions of it are not readily available, and to the extent that they are, there is still the necessity to use clues to gain access to her inner life and to show how she found meaning in her faith and actions, how she connected them to one another, and if this is an expression of revival or apocalyptic mentality. Because the goal of the study is to see that which is not evident, rather than to analyse that which is presented straight away, a micro-historical approach is the best one to use, if for no other reason than that I must be conscious of my goal rather than assume that I will simply draw conclusions from a material which writes history “as it really was”. If I am not aware that my goal is something beyond that which is stated explicitly in the source material, I might fall to empty speculation. Ginzburg discusses this and how the microhistorian and the author of fictional works meant to portray reality, such as Stendhal and Tolstoy, must ultimately take two different approaches when it
59 Ginzburg (1989), chapter 1. A variation of this story can be found in the opening scene of Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose. 60 Levi (1991), p. 106.
18 comes to lacunae in the source material.61 The author of fiction uses this as an opportunity to fantasize freely, whereas the microhistorian uses the very fact that something is missing as a part of the story he is telling. He does not speculate wildly, but carefully puts the available clues together to ascertain what is likely.
4.1.3. Quantity and Quality
One implication of realizing this paradigm is that together with the quantitative history common at the time Ginzburg originally published his text (1976) and in the Annales school out of which microhistory grew, greater breadth must be given to the qualitative history of the individual case. Ginzburg underscores that the qualitative dimensions of any social science are insensitive to the unique. That became a main part of his argument for why the social historians of the Annales school ultimately failed at what they aimed to do, namely to portray the culture of the lower classes of society, whose voices had not been put to paper, at least not by themselves, and were therefore to a large extent lost to historians.62 The aforementioned Giovanni Levi also discusses the relationship between quantitative and qualitative history, and argues that in comparison to certain interpretative anthropological thought, represented by Clifford Geertz, which on a surface level might seem similar to microhistory, the latter does not aim at establishing laws or models based on the research results uncovered. Levi disagrees with Geertz, who is said to espouse combining “a repertoire of concepts” with “a repertoire of interpreted events”,63 in order for the scientist to reach greater or more ambitious conclusions outside of the context of a particular case. Instead, Levi emphasizes that the customs, symbols, and identities of a given setting can only be understood more precisely within it. Microhistory with its clue-centred paradigm becomes the best way to do this, because of its cautiousness regarding abstractions and its internal logic emphasizing both the intrinsic and instrumental values of delving into an individual case.64 Given that the aim of such research is to present such a rich and detailed world, it is no surprise that abstractions and generalizations will most likely have to wait, although the macro-world or the larger culture behind the local examples remain relevant for the analysis as well as possible end stations for the train of analytical thought. All of this leads us to the question of scale: What is “micro” about microhistory, and besides the opportunity for a rich individual case, why is it important or even useful?
61 Ginzburg (2012), chapters 10 and 14. 62 Ginzburg (1983). 63 Levi (1991), p. 104. 64 Levi (1991), pp. 104-105.
19 4.1.4. Scale as Analytical Tool
Scale, to Levi, is not the object of study, that is, micro-historical research does not aim to cut out a piece of a phenomenon in order to zoom in on it and ignore its context. Rather, a smaller scale is an analytical procedure used to gain access to that which is not noticeable on the macro level. “The unifying principle of all micro-historical research,” writes Levi, “is the belief that microscopic observation will reveal factors previously unobserved.”65 For instance, prices on the land market are a macro-economical phenomenon, but it is on the micro level that the researcher is able to see how kinship ties affect prices, and notice that land is given drastically different prices when sold to kin rather than to strangers. Thus, despite the focus on the smaller scale and the cautiousness regarding grand generalizations, the analysis does not necessarily move from macro level to micro level, but might very well do just the opposite.66 The use of scale as an analytical tool also allows the researcher to avoid over-simplified functionalist explanations. The micro level reveals social contradictions, especially the different sources of values and normative systems. The individual’s necessity and ability to negotiate these different systems and the conflicts they bring about is brought to the fore in micro-historical research. Clues left behind by an individual subject will hopefully allow the researcher to see not only which system was present in a given cultural context and what actions a given subject undertook, but also how the two were connected. Levi puts the negotiation of normative systems at the centre of micro-historical research. “In this type of enquiry”, he writes, “the historian is not simply concerned with the interpretation of meanings but rather with defining the ambiguities of the symbolic world, the plurality of possible interpretations of it and the struggle which takes place over symbolic as much as material resources.”67 For the present study, this has the consequence that I through analysing the faith and actions of Greta Andrén can find results that a macro study of Swedish aid to Jewish refugees would have missed, especially a quantitative study focusing on the material side of things, or a reading of the texts of Missionstidning för Israel. The reduced scale will also allow me to discover and analyse contradictory behaviour, such as a philanthropic agenda toward Jews with anti-Judaic sentiment dispersed throughout its ideological roots.
65 Levi (1991), p. 97. 66 Levi (1991), pp. 95, 97-98. This is not to say that abstractions are made. The analysis simply has consequences at the macro level, or necessitates details from it. 67 Levi (1991), p. 95.
20 4.1.5. Microhistory and Narrative
In a way that may not always be the case with macrohistory, although it can be, the task of a microhistorian is to tell a story. This may sound trivial at first, and whether or not all historians do just that is certainly a valid question. What I mean is that there is a clear narrative aspect to micro- historical writing. Macrohistory presents historical facts – microhistory tells a story. Giovanni Levi emphasizes how microhistorians pay special heed to the reception of their research by way of presenting it in a narrating fashion. They pay attention to “the actual detailed procedures which constitute the historian’s work”.68 This work is part of the narrative itself – formulating the research questions, visiting the archives, the historian’s own perspective on the subject matter, and so on. As Levi states:
The research process is explicitly described and the limitations of documentary evidence, the formulation of hypotheses and the lines of thought followed are no longer hidden away from the eyes of the uninitiated. The reader is involved in a sort of dialogue and participates in the whole process of constructing the historical argument.69
The point here is that because the scale of the study is reduced, and the particular example viewed, the resonance between historian and the object of study, the phenomenological reception by the historian, matters to a greater degree when interpretations of the results are made than might be the case with a macrohistorical work (this is my interpretation of Levi’s text). Involving the reader in the process of research does of course not rid the author of his scientific duty. He is not free to invent.
4.1.6. Summary of the Theory Section
At the core of the micro-historical tradition lies the clue-centred paradigm. It concerns itself with using traces left behind by the object of research in order to access a world which is not to be directly found in the source material. Microhistory has its roots in the history of mentalities, and thus one aspect of such a world is the mentality or the attitudes of its inhabitants. This is something which gives microhistory an edge over quantitative macro-research, which is insensitive to the
68 Levi (1991), p. 93. 69 Levi (1991), p. 106.
21 particular, for instance the expressions of a mentality and the contradictions found therein. In order to achieve this, microhistory uses the reduction of scale as a tool. Part of this reduction is the presentation of the results and the research process in the form of a narrative. This is not the same as writing a short story, but to tell rather than present. Such a manoeuvre sifts through the details of the everyday world that the researcher has entered, enabling him to see how clues fit together or how they contradict one another. How, then, will all this be put into practice in the current study?
4.2. Method and Models
In the following I present my own thoughts based on the theory section, unless otherwise noted. Using narrative as a driving force of a study does not mean that I will write a short story about Greta Andrén. Rather, it will be a tool for relating different pieces of the puzzle to one another. In one sense the result of my research is a story, or part of a story, but it is full of ifs and buts, and narration must serve to relate the possibilities of the results to the reader. I will use reduced scale as a methodological tool by zooming in on the core of an already small sample: the meaning Greta Andrén found in the faith and actions of her everyday world. Everything else in the study must relate to this. The entire narrative will be built around this only. SIM itself is not the point of the study, it is the stage upon which the results play out. What I mean is that the relevance of a clue is based on its connection to Greta Andrén, which can result in certain clues that seem small and pointless to study actually being highly relevant for my purposes. If this were not my method, the scale would no longer be a tool for digging out results that would otherwise have been missed – it would just be the incidental level of the object of my study, and thus not a conscious micro- historical approach. This approach might not become very visible to the reader, as it has more to do with my reading of the sources and what I take from them, than it has to do with the analysis I present. Locking on to a given micro-level phenomenon which is intimately tied to the meaning of a person’s being – such as faith and actions – translates to a narrative which is more than simply telling a story. The narrative becomes part of the research itself. This is because the narrative is what brings out the clues which cannot be found on the macro level – because the narrative is the micro scale. All narratives are not thus, but when combined with micro-history the narrative becomes micro-historical and remains so as long as the historian is conscious of it. Again, this consciousness might not become visible to the reader, but will be with me as I interpret the sources. I must, however, be fair to the reader and explicate how and why I have chosen a particular
22 narrative when the source material does not make it obvious what Andrén’s everyday world looked like. How, then, does this lead to the reconstruction of an everyday world? The clues found in the source material will start to make sense only when related to one another within the confines of a narrative. They must all form a network, each clue illuminated by the others at the same time, ultimately being seen together. To take a very practical example, my consumption of coffee in the university cafeteria must be seen in relationship to my affiliation with the university, my economic means, my desire to quit drinking coffee, my work habits, and my desire to be effective all at once. If the coffee consumption is seen only in the chronological order of my actions, that is, after my desire to quit but before my desire to be effective, the consumption will not make sense, or I will only see the contradiction but not the roots thereof. Similarly, Greta Andrén’s helping a certain child cannot be seen only in relation to her having been consecrated as a deaconess and missionary three years earlier. It must also be seen as part of the ideology which she might have expressed at a later date. Even though the ideology is expressed later, it is a clue which can shine a light on an earlier action. This thesis is a search for the meaning of the faith and actions of Greta Andrén in that everyday world. Faith and actions had an everyday dimension and a dimension of meaning, overlapping each other. It is therefore reasonable, I think, to arrange the clues in four pairs:
9. Everyday-faith. 10. Meaning-faith. 11. Everyday-action. 12. Meaning-action.
In the everyday-faith category we have attitudes towards everyday phenomena, including the Jewish clients, as well as the signs Andrén perceived herself to witness. Here, she herself becomes part of the clue-centred paradigm, “hunting” the quarry of God’s will, the signs thereof being the clues pointing her in its direction. This overlaps with the meaning-faith category where we would find Andrén’s existential cushion which would soften the blow of external happenings. God’s overall will, the meaning of existence, and the reasons for the suffering around her are all phenomena belonging in this category. Thus the first category contains the traces of the second. The everyday-action category contains work, care, and living conditions, as well as the hierarchy and cooperation at Seegasse. The final category, meaning-action, fits the actions into Andréns faith and her wider network of symbols of meaning. These four pairs are not perfect, and I have not taken them from a greater theoretician within the micro-historical field, but rather made them up myself.
23 They will, however, give me a tool with which to begin digging. I arrange my findings according to the categories, not because it is reasonable or even possible to completely separate them from one another or to claim that a given finding only belongs to one category, but because the categories form different parts of the narrative I must tell about Andrén in order to get to the bottom of her everyday world. I will be on the lookout for different symbols and keywords, and hope that relating it to one of the categories above is the best way to build that narrative. The keywords will be made up related to the research of Göran Gunner, whose work was mentioned briefly in the background section. Gunner has sorted the apocalyptic literature of Swedish Protestants outside the Church of Sweden into five categories. These models are best understood as Weberian ideal types. The literature analysed by Gunner mainly hails from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and could thus be argued to have been relevant to the missionaries of SIM even though they were tied to the Church of Sweden, as there was a connection between revivalist Christianity within the latter and that of the other denominations. The models are:
1. Model T – The Signs of the Times. Based on the signs given by God, it was possible to know how far away the Second Coming of Christ one was. The Jews were both part of the Kingdom and a sign or source of signs. Zionism and a perceived interest for Jesus and Christianity were seen as signs, but a Zionism which was “blind” to Israel’s religious calling – conversion – was seen as impossible.70 2. Model K – Chronology. From several authors claims were made that the year of the Second Coming was possible to calculate. Several important dates were brought forth, and when the Lord did not return that year, some other meaningful sign was found to claim that his approach was steady. Two important examples are 1917, which saw the Balfour declaration and general Allenby’s march into Jerusalem, meaning a Christian nation once more held that city, and 1933/34, which rather macabrely saw the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship. The chronologists often looked to the Jews to find the signs, just like the authors of model T.71 3. Model D – Dispensationalism. According to the variety of dispensationalism presented by Gunner, the End Times were already here. They had begun with the receiving of the Holy Ghost on Pentecost, which was when the Jewish people had been put aside for a while for Christianity to spread and to prepare the Earth for the Second coming. When the suspension was over, the righteous among the Jews would be the primary inheritors of the Kingdom.
70 Gunner (1996), pp. 78-81. 71 Gunner (1996), pp. 81-86.
24 Important to note is that the dispensationalists believed, that no more prophecies would be fulfilled until the Kingdom came. Everything was prepared, and the Apocalypse could happen at any minute. The Jews were likened to God’s watch, which had stopped for a while but soon would start ticking again.72 4. Model A – The Threat of Antichrist. By far the most antisemitic of the categories as many authors believed the Jews would seal a pact with the Antichrist or that the latter would come out of the Jewish people. Jews were accused of gathering more and more power in finance and politics, which was related to the building of a totalitarian world government. Model A saw the Jews as the centrepiece of history, and all the other peoples would always watch them. Zionism was seen as a national project, not a religious one. Ultimately, the Jews would face Armageddon after which the righteous ones would be saved.73 5. Model S – Zionism as a major actor in the Final Days. This last model had much in common with others, both models D and A. The days when the Jews would become important historical actors again were close, whether working for the Antichrist or not. Details surrounding Zionism were seen as signs of the impending Apocalypse, such as the productive power of Jewish farms and the expansion of cities in Palestine. As deserts and swamps were made to bear fruit, no one could deny that something important was going on. The Arabs would be scuffed aside. And yet, as with other models, the true return to Israel was not this material success but would only be established during the Second Coming.74
I will use these models to organize the keywords, the clues, found in the source material. This will provide a greater context to the findings, relating them to the macro analysis of Gunner. The categories might also serve as a sorting tool, making it possible to see a given clue for what it is. To summarize: A narration of the research and the results is the best way to access the everyday, micro-historical scale. This scale reveals clues that other types of research would have missed. The clues can be put together to understand the everyday world of the object of research. In this case, the clues will be tied to keywords. The keywords will in turn be sorted into the models provided by Gunner, but the models themselves will also make it possible to see clues that might have been overlooked otherwise. For instance, if Andrén were to write that the Jews of Vienna had gotten their power by scandalous means and were using it to promote atheism and the decline of morals, this would be assigned the keyword “Jewish anti-Christianity” and be put into model A. Working in reverse, a mentioning of the Jewish suffering as a sign that God was moving his plan for the
72 Gunner (1996)., pp. 86-89. 73 Gunner (1996), pp. 89-92. 74 Gunner (1996), pp. 92-95.
25 Creation along might not have been seen as a clue at all, whereas now, with Gunner’s models T and D, I would recognize such an utterance as part of a larger context, and thus understand it as a clue.
5. Results 5.1. 1938: Anschluss, Kristallnacht, “Spontaneous Aryanization”
It was on the 12th of March 1938 that Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany. This was and is still known as the Anschluss. Discussions regarding a possible joining of Austria to Germany had been conducted since the end of the First World War and the collapse of the Habsburg Empire. The Anschluss was enthusiastically, fervently even, greeted by “Aryan” Austrians. The “spontaneous Aryanization” mentioned previously broke out, culminating in the Kristallnacht on the evening between the 9th and 10th of November, aptly named after the baroque amounts of broken glass in the streets after mobs had thrashed the windows of Jewish stores and homes. In February of 1938, “Sister Greta” writes in the missionary journal about the last Christmas celebration before the Anschluss. In her text, children and the youth are central, as well as relief to the poor. While she was distributing clothes one day, she asked a man: “So maybe there will be a Christmas this year as well?” The man replied: “Yes, Christmas, and much more!” The response was meaningful to Andrén. She asks in the text if the man could have been given light in a dark life? Together with the children she built a nativity scene, but the project was stalling as there was no money to buy the necessary pieces. The money came just before Christmas – a sign to Sister Greta. Throughout her text, gratitude on behalf of the Jews is constantly present:
I see before me our little red-headed Alfred, a little 7-year-old polish refugee. As I was serving the sausages and came with the second pair, I said jokingly to him: “You couldn’t handle more.” But he anxiously stretched out both hands towards me and looked anxiously asking from me to the mother and from the mother to the sausages, and as I put them on his tray, he shone as if though he had been given everything his heart desired!75
Sister Greta writes about feeling constantly small and humble in front of the starving children. As some of the girls arranged a Christmas celebration for the children, she taught about the Wise Men. In response, the children also wanted to bring gifts to the child Jesus – but what should they bring? Someone exclaimed: “Toys!”, but Sister Greta understood that many of the children did not have
75 Hedenquist, G., Andrén, G (1938): p. 43.
26 any toys to give away. A boy said that since he is a king, he should live in a castle. Sister Greta explained to them: Jesus wants to live in our hearts, and if we let him in, it does not matter if we live in poverty-stricken apartments. All he asks is that he be allowed to live in our hearts. As the holidays drew to an end, Andrén asked herself is everything was over. But then she saw that a stick which had supported a Christmas cactus had begun to sprout. “It is not over now – now it begins! We sow, but God gives the growth. He is able!”76 This is in all likelihood a reference to 1 Corinthians 3:6-9,77 which may very well have been understood by the readers of the journal. It points to a use of biblical language by Andrén. Whether she remembered that sprouting plant or not in the following months we’ll never know, but she would have needed the sentiment. Our story begins with a letter from Pastor Hedenquist to missionary director Pernow dated the 14th of March 1938, a Monday. Friedrich Forell had been aggravated or assaulted in the street, no doubt an effect of the spontaneous outburst of antisemitic violence in the wake of “spontaneous Aryanization” mentioned by previous researchers. We know that Forell would later escape to Prague and then to Sweden. Through Hedenquist, he strongly urged Pernow to travel to Vienna. The exact nature of the danger to the mission is not spelled out, but it was presumably in danger of being shut down (which Pernow and Hedenquist would prevent) or targeted by either mobs or authorities in an even more violent fashion. Hedenquist mentions the dread felt by the clients of SIM and that they are beginning to gather in greater and greater numbers at the station. The Sunday before 50-60 people received Holy Communion, and “all day” the station was open to those in spiritual need. Hedenquist calls it a rich time from a missionary point of view. This letter was written two days after the Anschluss. On it, an otherwise machine-written text, Göte Hedenquist’s handwriting spells out the single line: “P. S. Today Hitler came to Vienna. D. S.”78 In the August-September issue of the Missionary Journal for Israel, Birger Pernow writes that Sister Anna-Lena has arrived in Vienna after having received the calling. “Sister Anna-Lena and Sister Greta belong to the same deaconess institute and are bound to each other with warm ties of friendship. Now God has put them side by side in the same deed.”79 The first clue regarding Greta Andrén in the correspondence after the Anschluss is a notation in a letter from Hedenquist to Pernow on the 8th of September, written in German.80 “Sister Greta is now
76 Ibid., p. 44. 77 ”I have planted, Apollo watered, but God gave the increase. Therefore, neither he that planteth is any thing, nor he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth, and he that watereth, are one. And every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labour.” 78 Hedenquist to Pernow 1938-03-14, E6a:10. 79 Pernow, B (1938): p. 229. 80 This was not uncommon. Sometimes the letters also switch language or use a German word or two in the middle of a Swedish text. Both censorship and the missionaries using German in their everyday world are the most reasonable
27 in Interlaken in Switzerland and will arrive well in Sweden on the 15th the same.”81 It seems she was still in Sweden three weeks after her arrival, as Hedenquists writes “Tell Sister Greta, that she is longed for and welcome when she can come.”82 To the same letter he attaches applications, presumably for immigration to Sweden. He wants Pernow to give the application of “the third [girl]” to “Sister Greta. She knows this case and she already has a place for her through the Mrs. Vicar in Fränd[e]fors. This last case should probably be particularly expedited.”83 No further details are given regarding the case or Andrén’s travels, but in December a letter, written by her in October in her hometown of Marstrand on the western coast of Sweden, is published in the Missionary Journal. She writes about Schwedenheim, the summer home in Weidling. Many “Jewish friends” had asked “with anxious voices and tears in their eyes” if they were at all able to go to Schwedenheim. And as they finally arrived, a girl said: “It is so solemn to be able to come here, it is as if though one came into a temple.”84 More young people wanted to come to Weidling than it was possible to house. The girls then suggested that they shared the time equally and get half a stay for each group. One of the girls helped Sister Greta a lot: “Often she gave me new courage, when the burden threatened to become too heavy.”85 She was not very old, but the smaller children took a liking to her. At an outdoors meeting, one girl talked about being a Christian in one’s life and not just in theory. “Let us not talk so much about the ways out to the others, let us rather begin with ourselves and let us live out Christ exactly where we stand, so that not the least those who persecute us can see that Christ lives! /.../ No one had anything to add! It got so quiet, and we could only pray the Lord to become living letters of Christ!”86 In December, a week before Christmas eve, Hedenquist writes to Pernow in German regarding emigration. It seems that the station in Vienna is able to send a group of children to a home in Sweden, but that clearance from Swedish authorities must first be given in order for the necessary paperwork to be handed out in Vienna. Two older girls will be allowed to follow them as caretakers and it seems they will stay at the home as well. It has not been possible to find girls who speak Swedish, but Hedenquist has chosen two together with Sister Greta who are particularly good. “We know them personally very well and can really recommend them.”87 When it comes to putting together the list of children who will go to Sweden, Sisters Greta and Anna-Lena have “helped especially” and chosen “only brave children”. Then a very interesting clue is presented:
explanations. 81 Hedenquist to Pernow 1938-09-08. E6a:7. 82 Hedenquist to Pernow 1938-10-06. E6a:8. 83 Op. cit. 84 Andrén, G (1938), p. 304-305. 85 Ibid., p. 305. 86 Ibid., pp. 305-306. 87 Hedenquist to Pernow 1938-12-17. E6a:8
28 For Nr. 49 E**** H**** I attach a letter from Sweden. Sister Greta has namely procured a special invitation for the little one. Additionally I must say that both the H**** siblings, even though they are Mosaic, belonged to us a long time and were raised Evangelical. They were also several years in Weidling.88
The year ends with a letter from Hedenquist to Pernow three days after Christmas. A nativity play by the children under the supervision of Sister Greta took place on Wednesday the 21st, and so many visitors came that the doors had to be shut and extra performances given. After prayer in the afternoon on the 24th, between five o’clock and half past seven, the staff visited the youth home at Seegasse and the crib built by Sister Greta and a couple of the girls. Hedenquist further writes that Sister Anna-Lena would like to go on a week’s vacation between the 8th and 15th of January, and after them the Asklunds and Sister Greta, possibly with her mother.89 The annual report for 1938, published in the Missionary Journal in July 1939 mentions the suffering of the Jews to a great degree. However, it is not always in bad terms:
From Vienna alone 50,000 [Jews] are estimated to have emigrated during the year. Any improvement of the situation is not to be expected. /.../ Thus God deeply plows with the plow of distress the field of Israel’s heart. And to the Swedish Israel mission He has trusted the demanding but glorious task to sow a part of this heart’s field. The task is more extensive than ever, because our mission is the only mission to the Jews which is still allowed to work within Germany, after the English missionary stations have been closed. But it is an extraordinarily rich and wonderful task to proclaim to the Jewish people the saving Gospel and prove to [the Jews] a Christian Samaritan help in [their] deep distress.90
The author, Birger Pernow, goes on to state that the Jewish people has encountered a tremendous suffering as a result of the political changes, both spiritually and materially. Therefore, the religious services at Seegasse has had to take in twice as many visitors, and the missionaries are “overrun” with visitors, sometimes up to 100 people per day. “An inhuman burden of labor thus rests on our
88 Op. cit. 89 Hedenquist to Pernow 1938-12-28. E6a:8 90 Svenska Israelsmissionens årsberättelse för 1938 (1939): pp. 180-181. Anna Besserman has underscored missionary director Birger Pernow’s view of the Second World War as part of God’s plan. The Jews were pulled out of darkness by the missionaries, and as all worldly hope was lost they turned to otherworldly hope. See Besserman (1991), pp. 74-75.
29 remaining workers.”91 This can be seen in light of model D – the Lord prepares his people for resuming their role as the true subjects of history by putting them through extreme hardships. The annual report was probably not written by Greta Andrén, but as the parts of the report which dealt with the foreign operations were based on reports from the stations and presumably also written in part by the leaders of the foreign missions, I have chosen to include it in order to show what thoughts regarding the Jews permeated the mission at this time, as well as to underscore the burden of labor carried by the missionaries. Sister Greta herself mentions this in passing: One of the girls gave her courage, when her burdens threatened to become too heavy. There are two types of people in Andréns texts besides herself: sources of inspiration, and poor, anxious people in dire need of help. To the former category, only children and the youth belonged, but in the latter people of all ages were found. Was this because she perceived them as such herself, or because it was an easy pedagogical model for the public in Sweden to understand and be smitten by? The anxiety of little Alfred, who was so hungry that two extra sausages were as good as his heart’s desire, is palpable through the text – Andrén knew how to write. I would argue that she does not simply exploit him in her article, it is clear from the available sources that she genuinely cared for the children. At this point she was closing in on 30 years of age and it is not unreasonable to believe that she had begun asking herself whether she would have any children of her own or not, although I have no evidence for such thoughts. This leads to the question of the children she seems to have given extra help in traveling to Sweden. The H**** siblings as well as an anonymous case, and the two girls who went along as caretakers for the younger children, were favored by her in some way. It is worth remembering that this was extended to non-baptized children, though they “belonged to us” - to SIM. None of these cases were published in the Missionary Journal, they all come from the correspondence. Greta Andrén did not help them as part of a media strategy. Exactly why she did it is hard to tell, but the children are mentioned as “good”, in the sense of being well-behaved. Given the evidence that she drew strength from some of the children, the suspicion arises within me that maybe extra help with entrance to Sweden or finding a good foster family was extended to those who had provided Sister Greta with courage and energy during her own moments of darkness. Lastly, I wish to simply note that already during the first year of the scope of the study, the amount of work the missionaries have to perform is described as “inhuman”.
91 Svenska Israelsmissionens årsberättelse för 1938 (1939), p. 204.
30 Thus the keywords or key phenomena from 1938 are: children as sources of strength, children as vulnerable, children expressing, being examples of, or teaching faith, children as a special concern, large amounts of work, and spiritual aid to the miserable.
5.2. 1939: War, Deportation, Kindertransporte
In 1939 the transportation of Jewish children out of Nazi Germany and its territories began in earnest. Especially Britain took in refugees, but Sweden also received them – within the confines of the quotas mentioned above. This was in part a reaction to the outbursts of anti-Semitic violence that began in 1938, but also as a response to the looming threat of war and the outbreak thereof on the 1st of September. The war effectively blocked many necessary ways out of Nazi territory for the persecuted. The deportation of Jews from Austria into occupied Poland began as well, under the supervision of Adolf Eichmann. The goal was at this point in time to expel Jews from the “Old Reich”, and thus they were forced to live in ghettoes in Eastern Europe. Early on in 1939, Pastor Seth Asklund writes about the situation in Vienna in the Missionary Journal. He tells the reader of the workload the missionaries suffer under:
And this is the second thing that strikes when one arrives, how brilliantly happy our workers carry an at many times inhuman workload, carry it not only without grumbling but with gratitude that they might serve. /.../ Every morning both the dressing room and youth home, even the church hall, are transformed to registry and office, where typing machines tap and telephones ring, where the paper stacks grow and letters come and go, and where the number of seekers of help and advice can count up towards the hundreds.92
In the same volume Sister Anna-Lena sends a Christmas greeting from SIM, describing the holidays of the previous year. It was important and special to her to celebrate Christmas, and it was “especially solemn when sister Greta and the youths performed the talking choir: ‘Advent longing and Advent promises.” It was a powerful sermon from a group of the young Israel /.../.” She continues: “After the girl’s prayer meeting sister Greta found the boys who would participate [in the talking choir] standing at the stairs, gathered in prayer. A boy came to me and asked for intercession for them all. It was also a moved congregation which left us that evening.”93
92 Asklund (1939): Bilder och intryck från Wien, p. 45. 93 Peterson (1939): ”Julhälsning från Wien”, p. 48.
31 It is noteworthy that Sister Greta did not contribute at all to Missionstidning för Israel during 1939. It is entirely possible that she wrote texts published elsewhere, but as this was the year when SIM administered the most emigration cases, it is also possible that she simply did not have time for writing articles. This is made more plausible by the testimony of Seth Asklund: The missionaries had enormous amounts of work to do. In the case of Andrén, she was involved in the emigration of several children and in some cases adults. The proportions are not clear, but the letters left behind in the correspondence which mention her in some way are almost always about children. On the 14th of February 1939 Göte Hedenquist wrote to Pernow to, among other things, plan the vacations of the staff. Andrén would have preferred to take hers during springtime, which is why the period between the 24/4 and the 25/5 is suggested in the letter. The goal is to have her back by Pentecost, but also to enable her to travel to the annual meeting, the date of which is not set. Anna-Lena Peterson would like to have her vacation between the 15/8 and the 15/9. Hedenquist himself is comfortable with going on vacation when the circumstances permit it.94 In the same letter, Hedenquist mentions a foster family in Sweden not being very satisfied with the girl they took in. “However,” Hedenquist writes, “the girl belongs to Sister Greta’s circle since a long time. I think that she is a good Christian, although a bit unused to work.” It is clear that Sister Greta is used as an argument – if she was part of the girl’s group, she should be enough for the foster family, or so Hedenquist seems to want to say. About another girl, Pastor Göte Kronwall writes: “A*** W**** is a very sweet and well- behaved girl. She belongs to the girl’s circle since a long time and Sister Greta appreciates her very much.” As it turns out, Pastor Kronwall’s sister-in-law is very keen on taking the girl in, and Kronwall pushes for SIM to do what is possible to hasten the application process. “We are convinced that she will perform the work her employer assigns to her with mettle and a sense of duty.”95 Yet another case: a contact in Sweden knows a man in want of a Viennese housekeeper. The missionaries suggest a girl who has been with the girl’s group for a long time and whom Sister Greta “appreciates much”. Her family is poor and it seems to be important to the staff that they find employment for her in Sweden – they ask if the potential employer is still interested, and states that it should not be difficult to find another one if required, as the girl has good marks and recommendations from earlier work.96
94 Hedenquist to Pernow 1939-02-14. E6a:8. 95 Kronwall to SIM 1939-07-07 a. E6a:9. 96 Kronvall to SIM 1939-08-25. E6a:9.
32 Again the approval of Greta Andrén is used as an argument when difficulties arise, as restrictions are tightened and household staff from Vienna is required to have a third country to continue their journey to (they were apparently exempt from this rule earlier) . Hedenquist writes that this would make SIM’s emigration work even more difficult, and asks if it wouldn’t be possible to arrange for exceptions in special cases. “J****** S****** belongs to the girl’s circle since about half a year and Sister Greta has recommended her especially warmly. She is energetic and sympathetic and at the present time has great difficulties, all of which makes us want to help her so much.”97 Another time Andrén herself intervenes and asks if nothing can be done for a girl who is of Jewish faith, but who is currently being taught by Sister Greta herself after Pastor Kronwall’s design.98 When Hedenquist finally has his vacation, it seems that Andrén takes over as leader. Until August 1939 there are few letters written by her, suddenly there are several. They deal with migration cases – for instance, boys who write home to Vienna to complain that they are being exploited for their labor and not fed enough. Sister Greta understands that the boys are exaggerating in order to maybe have a chance at getting back home to their parents, but still wishes that someone could control the veracity of the accusations.99 Another time she wishes to know how many places are available at the camp in Tostarp.100 She asks about different cases and wants to know how difficulties can be solved. One girl is not eligible for entering Sweden because she has no third country to move on to – but Sister Greta assures that she has relatives in Romania, the only problem being that she cannot enter Romania from Germany.101 In a third case, she sends several letters wishing that the transit clause be removed from the files of three girls so that they can enter Sweden and not have to move on.102 In a fourth case, the opportunity for a mother in England and her daughter in Sweden to reunite has arisen, and Sister Greta wants someone from SIM in Stockholm to escort the girl to England in order for the mother to circumvent paying a hefty entrance fee.103 Simultaneously, there seems to be some skepticism on her side towards helping those of whom she knows little – two brothers who were deemed Mischlinge, having both Jewish and Aryan heritage, by the authorities had fled to Italy and from there wished to travel to Sweden. The Viennese staff thought it best if they returned to Vienna, more or less explicitly for assessment, before they could be sent to an agricultural school in Sweden. Andrén writes that they should return to Vienna “as we wish to make the selection for Sweden as well as possible.”104 This is both
97 Hedenquist to SIM 1939-10-16. E6a:9. 98 Andrén to Hedenquist 1939-07-27. E6a:9 99 Andrén to SIM 1939-08-01. E6a:9 100 Andrén to SIM 1939-08-16. E6a:9 101 Andrén to SIM 1939-08.01 b. E6a:9 102 Andrén to SIM 1939-08-23, 1939-08-14 a. Both E6a:9 103 Andrén to SIM 1939-08-15. E6a:9 104 Andrén to SIM 1939-08-01 a. E6a:9
33 comparable to the attitude of the Mosaic congregation of Stockholm and in line with the wishes of Swedish authoritites. Refugees should not be a burden to the state or to the families who accepted them. Her leadership position is further underscored by the demanding tone of some of the aforementioned letters, and by Hedenquist wishing to bring her along to Prague to assess the situation there and the possibility of expansion to that city.105 She strongly expresses her opinions regarding new staff, and seems to think they are either not suited for the tasks ahead or would only be in the way as they would not stay for long enough to properly learn the routines of the station.106 Regarding the outbreak of the war, Kronwall writes about two weeks after the invasion of Poland begun that “Sister Greta thinks it has been worse than in November” - that is, during the pogroms.107 I wonder if what peeks out from the letters is a growing possessiveness on part of Sister Greta. Her very strong relationship to the children and utmost care for them is expressed by her wanting exceptions to important rules for their sake. At the same time, sending them away would mean losing her primary sources of strength, courage, and inspiration. Conversley, she is not as keen on helping just anybody come to Sweden, as is evidenced by her letter on the two brothers in Italy. She wants to see them – perhaps build a relationship with them? The girls in the letters from 1939 have often been with SIM for longer periods of time. It is telling that her colleagues, at least Pastors Hedenquist and Kronwall, use her as an argument. If Sister Greta sees good in a child, that child must be saved. If she is skeptical of new staff, her opinion should matter. It is never mentioned or insinuated that the Will of Greta must be done simply because she is impossible to deal with unless she gets what she wants. Rather, the tone in the letters is often dear and it seems that the priests all trust Andréns judgment. Finally, the amount of work remains huge, and it is reasonable to assume that this affected Andrén as much as anybody, if not more. If it is true that she started to become possessive of “her” tasks and “her” children, then it is also likely that she would refuse help when needed and overexert herself. The keywords of 1939 could be said to be: exertion for the sake of the children, possessiveness of children, leadership and influence over SIM, a large amount of work, and outward work or work by putting pressure on actors.
5.3. 1940: Exhaustion and Further Signs from the Children
105 Hedenquist to Pernow 1939-10-12. E6a:9. 106 Hedenquist to Pernow 1939-07-27, undated letter, possibly 1939-04-22. E6a:8. 107 Kronwall to Pernow 1939-09-13. E6a:9
34 In January, Seth Asklund writes in Missionary Journal for Israel about his memories from Vienna. Again he mentions how hard the staff works.108 This did not always pay off the way the missionaries hoped: one of the three girls for whom Sister Greta managed to arrange an exception to the rules on transmigration was placed in an asylum in the first month of 1940. Pernow writes in a letter to Hedenquist that the girl feared for the well-being of her beloved ones, and imagined herself to be constantly followed. In his reply, Hedenquist calls the case a “burdening sorrow” and writes: “Sister Greta has cried for several days. [The girl] was one of the best here.”109 Sister Ingrid Wermcrantz, who was “on loan” from Sweden for a few months, writes in February about the Christmas she had at Seegasse. Sister Greta’s girl’s circle gathered for a small advent’s celebration and after asking the Lord to bless the Advent times and the gathering, she asked who knew anything about Advent. Most girls did not know anything. Sister Ingrid writes: “To me it was a new and rich experience to be allowed to say something about the message of Advent to those who heard it for the first time. Apart from this I explained how we celebrate Advent in Sweden, as Sister Greta had asked me to do.”110 She also adds that the girls through singing Advent songs and listening to Sister Greta the girls received an impression regarding the meaning of Advent. After some time in Sweden, Sister Ingrid returned for another five months, which was reported in the Missionary Journal in September by Birger Pernow. “With almost overwhelming joy she was welcomed back. She had apparently won everybody’s heart and her work in Vienna is richly blessed. Through her arrival it was possible for both our other deaconesses, Sister Greta Andrén and Sister Anna-Lena Peterson, to take on month’s vacation in turn back home in Sweden.”111 This is noteworthy, because on the 4th of June a letter to Birger Pernow includes the line: “Greta is not at all interested in any vacation when she can not come home [to Sweden] and the same goes for Anna- Lena.”112 The same letter shows Andrén’s influence in matters of staff management once more: Missionary Haenflein’s wife was suggested to substitute for Anna-Lena for a little while. The author of the letter, presumably Johannes Ivarsson, consulted with Sister Greta and both were skeptical. References are being made to a conflict between Mrs. Haenflein and the chef, and to a “failure” on behalf of the Haenfleins which is also mentioned in another letter – they were put in charge of the Weidling home for a short while, with less than satisfying results.113 In that other letter, sent a little earlier, director Pernow expresses worry about the vacations of the deaconesses, especially Greta Andrén. There seems to have been a problem regarding the arrival of Ingrid Wermcrantz, and before
108 Asklund (1940), p. 12. 109 Pernow to Hedenquist 1940-01-13, Hedenquist to Pernow 1940-01-28. Both E6a:9. 110 Wermcrantz (1940), p. 38-39. 111 Pernow, B. (1040), p. 232. 112 Unknown to Pernow, 1940-06-04. E6a:9. 113 Op. cit.
35 it was known with certainty that she could come to Vienna, other possible solutions were floated. Ivarsson wished for both Sisters Anna-Lena and Greta to have a month-long vacation, and Greta was the one who should have it first, because she needed it the most.114 She apparently had a few days off in the beginning of the year, but not much more, it seems.115 This is not surprising, as the work of a missionary was not an ordinary profession, but something she was called and consecrated to do. Her work was her life, not merely a role she took between certain hours of the day. In May, an issue regarding Andrén’s salary arose. Pastor Ivarsson writes to Stockholm: “I would like to talk with You about Greta’s benefits. She says that almost all of her salary goes to the household. Anna-Lena now has everything for free at the same salary, apart from that Greta’s work is completely invaluable and not comparable to Anna-Lena’s [sic!]. This is in my opinion not just.”116 Furthermore, Ivarsson reports that nobody in the staff expects any vacation – “/.../ we are not tired at all and happily keep working. Our most important work, as a mission, keeps going unhindered. Miss [Malla] Granat and Greta share the home visits.”117 Without these home visits, no subsidies were handed out. At least 25 visits were made every week. Another, smaller sign that Greta Andrén’s work was valued higher than Anna-Lena Peterson’s came in April when the Pernows sent a package of sweets to Vienna. “They are meant for You and Your family and Sister Greta as well as Sister Anna-Lena, to the extent she needs it, and you will have to try and share it like siblings.”118 The way I read this sentence, Greta belongs to the same category as Ivarsson and his family, whereas Anna-Lena forms a category of her own, who will receive sweets on an as-needed-basis. Sweets can be an important morale boost in trying times suchas war, and it is not impossible that Andrén was meant to have some so that her exhaustion could be alleviated. The girl who was institutionalized in January was “completely recovered”119 by November. Andrén’s response is not to be found in the documentation, but from what we know of her, the relief must have been enormous. In the end, though, it seems that the hard work overwhelmed her. On the 4th of December, Pernow writes and asks about her health, as Sister Ingrid has told him that she “has been sick”.120 Ten days later he writes again stating that he has heard that she is sick. Taken together this would mean that she had one bout of illness or, more likely, overexertion, during the fall and another one in December. He asks Pastor Ivarsson to “hold her leash for a bit”, “so that she does not
114 Pernow to Ivarsson, 1940-05-27. E6a:9. 115 Pernow to Hedenquist, 1940-02-14. E6a:9. 116 Ivarsson to Pernow, 1940-05-03. E6a:10. 117 Op. cit. 118 Pernow to Ivarsson, 1940-04-25. E6a:10. 119 Pernow to Ivarsson, 1940-11-11. E6a:10. 120 Pernow to Ivarsson, 1940-12-04. E6a:10.
36 overexerts herself thus again.” He finally wishes for her to be sent to the resort town Semmering for a few weeks’ “thorough” rest, which SIM will pay for.121 A few days after Christmas, Pernow writes: “It gladdens me a lot that Sister Greta is better /.../ but I find it particularly important that she as soon as possible after Christmas travels away for a few weeks, and I would be grateful if You would see to that it happens.”122 The year ended with an article in the Missionary Journal by Sister Greta herself, titled “Glimpses from our everyday life in Vienna.” She starts of by telling her readers about a young soldier. He was on leave from the front, and through a woman who regularly visited Seegasse, he happened to come to a meeting with the children’s group and Sister Greta, dressed in his uniform. The theme of that meeting was finding safety in following Jesus. The soldier participated actively, and wanted to write down some of the songs to take with him back to the front. Sister Greta left the room for a short while, and when she came back, she found the soldier crying. “It was moving to see the joy with which he participated in the children’s games, and one felt, that he himself for a few moments was a child again. Perhaps the little ones got to show him some of the children’s heaven and God’s love.”123 Sister Greta followed a little girl of eight years to the train. Her father was dead and her mother was all she had left. Sister Greta followed her to the platform – by this time non-Aryans were not allowed to enter the train stations, so that the Aryans wouldn’t have to see them – and asked her through the window if she was afraid to go all the way to Sweden alone. The girl, Lisl, answered: “Oh no, I am not afraid. Because I do not travel alone. Because God is with me.” Sister Greta finishes the anecdote by quoting Matt. 18:3: “Unless you be converted, and become as little children...”.124 Three old sisters lived together in poverty. They had been forced from their apartment to a small room, and after one of them had broken her arm and femoral neck, she simply waited in pain for death. Andrén writes: “It is a grace and a great joy for us to be able in some small way to ease their suffering. And more than once I have thanked God for my nurse’s education, which often gives me access to many homes.”125 One day, Sister Greta ran into a woman she did not recognize as she was returning from the three sisters. She assumed that the woman belonged to the SIM congregation, as she addressed the deaconess by name. They talked for a short while and as they parted the woman quoted the Letter to the Hebrews (13:8), and said: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, so too for eternity. That is my only certainty.” Andrén experienced that everything around her got 121 Pernow to Ivarsson, 1940-12-14. E6a:10. 122 Pernow to Ivarsson, 1940-12-28. e6a:11. 123 Andrén (1940), p. 320. 124 Andrén (1940), p. 320. 125 Andrén (1940), p. 321.
37 curiously bright, and she “received new courage and new joy to again take on the struggle. ‘Your father knows...’.”126 Pastor Ivarsson received a letter from a member of the congregation who had lived in despair and not been able to promise God real repentance. But through SIM and the Lord’s Holy Supper repentance and a wish to obey God were found. Finally: The children’s group gathered on Tuesdays. The adults present were worried for the upcoming winter. “Many times,” Andrén writes, “the little ones have to help us adults to the holy carefreeness.”127 In the annual report for 1940, the withdrawal of Göte Hedenquist on the last of March to his home parish is announced. It also seems that the move back to Sweden was motivated by the workload he had had to carry during the time in Vienna. The report reads: “The loss was great, but the hard strain in Vienna had depleted his strength to such a degree, that the Board did not dare influence him to stay, but rather saw in the calling evidence of God’s care for his own.”128 The new leader of the mission, Johannes Ivarsson, adds to the report that the primary purpose of the station at Seegasse has always been and shall remain the missionary work. He also gives some data regarding the activities: “To the Tuesday’s ‘Frauenstunde’ about 70-80 older ladies come regularly. The boy’s circle has gathered around 20 young boys and to the girl’s circle belong about 35 girls. To our children’s group about 30 children come.”129 Furthermore, Ivarsson emphasizes spiritual care as the most important activity next to missionary work. He himself and Sister Greta received many visitors daily, and it seems that Sister Greta was the only deaconess who worked with spiritual care in this regard.130 Once again, we are witnesses to Andrén’s special relationship with the children of SIM. When a protege is institutionalized, she cries for days. When a soldier on leave visits her, she extends the category “child” to include him and sees in this a rich blessing. The children seemed to show the soldier, as well as the adults who feared the coming winter, the way to the Lord. Signs are everywhere to Sister Greta, and meeting an acquaintance in the street who leaves with a religious uttering makes the world around her brighter. Perhaps this is not difficult to imagine, as 1940 was a dark and strenuous year which took its toll on her. She needed the strength and courage – the meaning – that the signs gave her, especially if the signs came through the work she felt called to, being a missionary and a deaconess, caring for little Jewish children and youths who in her view
126 Andrén (1940), p. 321. 127 Andrén (1940), p. 322. 128 Svenska Israelsmissionens årsberättelse för 1940, p. 205. 129 Svenska Israelsmissionens årsberättelse för 1940, p. 208. 130 Svenska Israelsmissionens årsberättelse för 1940, p. 208.
38 possessed the innocence and clarity of vision to see the path to sanctity and the radicalism to act upon it. The sources of 1940 also make Andréns position within SIM clearer. She is valued above Anna- Lena, and in all likelihood above any member of the staff except the priests. This seems to have its roots in her actions – her willingness to work and presumably the quality with which she performed it. She was not afraid to use this position to protect what was precious to her, be it the proteges she seemed to find in the children, or the missionary work in general. It is remarkable that no signs of annoyance with her behavior can be found, but certainly a forceful personality sooner or later leads to conflicts. Perhaps this is why children were so important to her – being an adult, she was their natural authority, and could thus be herself more freely around them, expressing her nature through everyday decisions. This is of course an interpretation that borders on speculation, but it is not unreasonable to reflect on this. I conclude that the keywords of 1940 are: authority, vulnerability to the fates of SIM’s children, proteges – which by now seems to fit with all years – work ethic, and stress and mental health problems.
5.4. 1941: Start of the Holocaust. End of the Operation in Vienna
1941 marked the earnest beginning of the Holocaust. Deportations from Vienna to concentration and extermination camps instead of ghettoes increased, and though it would not be named until the following year, the first steps of the Final Solution were taken. In light of this, the use of SIM to the Nazi authorities was exhausted, and the station at Seegasse was ordered to turn into a home for the elderly. The new year began with the intention to go to Semmering – both Sister Greta and Pastor Ivarsson’s wife Maja were in great need of recreation. “Greta feels very tired and still sometimes feels the equilibrium to be upset.”131 It is not clear whether or not she went. However, in mid- February Ivarsson wrote to Pernow: “Sister Greta is now completely recovered and we are all very happy about it. The rest of us are all healthy, too.”132 Pernow was still worried about her health by this time: “Ask Greta specially that she as far as possible spares her health and powers. God give her strength!”133 However, the letters were sent so close to one another that the good news of Greta’s recovery had not reached Pernow by the time he sent his regards.
131 Ivarsson to Pernow, 1941-01-02. E6a:11. Ivarsson writes ”känning av balansstörning”, presumably meaning mood swings. 132 Ivarsson to Pernow, 1941-02-12. E6a:11. 133 Pernow to Ivarsson, 1941-02-15. E6a:11.
39 When the deportations began in earnest, Greta Andrén received letters from prisoners in Poland who came from Vienna. She writes about them in the November edition of the Journal. The common theme is the courage of Jewish Christians and their ability to preach among and care for the other Jews. One example is Mrs. F., who once was impractical and afraid, but now decisive and courageous, leading the caritative work in her camp. This Mrs. F. is in all likelihood Gerty Fischer, the subject of Andréns book A Letter from Christ. It is noteworthy that she used that title, as she prayed with the youth group in Weidling in 1938 to become a Letter of Christ. Mrs. F. used to feel a compulsion to read Scripture, to write down the sermons she heard, and to visit the station at Seegasse daily to ask for explanations of what she read. Both she and Sister Greta now saw that the compulsion was God’s way of preparing her for the darkness ahead. This preparation can be seen as corresponding to Gunner’s model D, making Mrs. F. a subject through her Christian work after being suspended in a Jewish life. Another example is a boy who disputes with the orthodox Jews around him and refutes their arguments with the help of Scripture. Andrén writes that both young and old bear witness that the missionary station became their home.134 Not much more material exists (where I have looked) before the station was shut down by the authorities and given five weeks to finish its work. If any keyword is to be assigned to 1941 it would be “uplifted”, as Mrs. F. was uplifted from a state of feebleness to one of capacity and courage in Christ.135 Andrén sent a list of Jewish-Christian coworkers which she wanted to bring to Sweden as well as “younger members of our congregation”.136 She left Vienna at the end of July 1941. In Sweden, she was an appreciated lecturer and kept working in the care for refugees. After the war, she came back to Vienna shortly, but ultimately moved on to Jerusalem where she was instrumental in founding the Swedish Theological Institute.
5.5. A Clue from Earlier Research I: Lizzie from Vienna
I have mentioned the research of Ingrid Lomfors, who had the opportunity to interview people who came to Sweden as children seeking refuge from the Nazis. Here I will present some of her results, adding them to my own, because some important clues are to be found therein.
134 Andrén, G. (1941): ”De våra i Polen”, pp. 313-316. 135 Cf. John: 3:14-15: ”And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him, may not perish; but may have life everlasting. ” 136 Ivarsson to Pernow 1941-04-02. E6a:11.
40 Lizzie (a feigned name), a Viennese girl, arrived in Sweden “an early summer day in 1939.”137 Her father was born Jewish and her mother, a Sudeten German, converted to that faith but, according to Lizzie, never held any deep religious convictions. The father was murdered in the Mauthausen concentration camp, the mother, being born “Aryan”, avoided deportation and survived the war. Lizzie’s father was “not at all pious, more like Jewish in name”, she says.138 She emphasizes that her family realised how threatened they were only when it was “too late”.139 Lomfors asks: “Your father must have understood what it meant [to] travel through the Israel mission?” Lizzie replies: “Yes, he probably understood it but perhaps not to that extent. It showed later in his letters, he thought we seemed obsessed with these religious meetings.”140 Lizzie and her sister came to the western Swedish island of Hönö – not far from Greta Andréns home town of Marstrand – and had to visit religious meetings. Her sister wanted them to hide, but they never did. Lizzie tells Lomfors:
Once they told us to kneel. My friend Edith whom I knew from Vienna started to cry and said that she did not want to kneel. To a Jew it was a sin. But our foster families did not understand that. So we knelt and had a bad conscience. We thought it was not right. I had a guilty conscience towards dad. Also, I did not believe in Jesus. Had I not submitted the way I did, things could have ended badly. I had probably not been allowed to stay with my foster family.141
Let us note some details. Here some highly relevant clues are presented: A Jewish father who was not particularly pious went to SIM for help. His daughters were taught psalms and attended religious meetings for at least half a year.142 They must have been part of Greta Andréns group of children or at least known to her. Yet they, or at least Lizzie, did not believe in Jesus Christ. The sisters, along with the girl Edith from Vienna, did not want to kneel during religious meetings in Sweden because it was a sin for a Jew to do so (though they “submitted” out of fear for having to leave their foster families). And still they were sent to Sweden by a missionary society.
137 Lomfors (1996), p. 211. 138 Lomfors (1996), p. 211. 139 Lomfors (1996), p. 212. 140 Lomfors (1996), p. 212. Lizzie refers to letters written after the she and her sister arrived in Sweden. The word she uses to describe the meetings is frireligiösa which means that they were not part of the Church of Sweden, and could be Pentecostal or Charismatic rather than Lutheran. 141 Lomfors (1996), pp. 212.13. 142 Lomfors (1996), p. 212. Lizzie uses the phrase ”säkert ett halvår” which literally translates to ”certainly half a year” but implies that it was longer than that.
41 She also says that when her family realized the severity of the situation in Austria, it was too late, presumably meaning too late for an easy escape. Could it be that it was the November pogroms, the Kristallnacht, that came as a wake-up call for the family? If so, can the same be said for others? Lizzie Andersson must have had contact with Greta Andrén during the entire time she went to SIM, but she does not mention her. Instead she says that they were taught psalms and visited “meetings”. “They who organized it were themselves Christian Jews, who were also forced to flee later”, she says.143 Did the staff send children to Sweden who had not been converted to Christianity – knowingly? Or were they caught up in a missionary zeal and believed themselves to be more successful than they really were? Thomas Pammer writes that already in 1928 the missionaries “made themselves no illusions” regarding the motives of the converts. Many saw it as a price they had to pay. In 1928 that price was half a year of religious studies, one hour per week, with Bible studies as homework. This corresponds to the time Lizzie would have spent at the station. However, many who did not have the patience for such a wait could go to the region of Upper Austria for a baptism, where they could also hide their Jewish origin – at least, their baptismal certificates do not mention it. Pammer concludes that it was not in the interests of SIM to convert as many people as possible in the least amount of time – this could lead to the baptism of those who were not ready to live a Christian life.144 Combining these results with the fact that Greta Andrén specifically tried to pave the road for some children of Jewish faith to Sweden (see above) means that there must have been some sort of leeway regarding how far the conversion process had gone before a child was eligible for a place in the refugee quota. It is not unlikely, based on what we have seen earlier, that Greta Andrén had the power to grant such exceptions. This would mean that something either made her regard emigration as more important than conversion or convinced her that both were achievable in a given case. This could of course also be her conscience calling on her to help the child. But she was more sceptical when it came to the two brothers who had fled to Italy. She presumably knew Lizzie. Her personal evaluation and judgement seems to have carried an important role. As a missionary with daily contact with potential converts, she would have had a trained eye for who was genuine in his or her religious curiosity and who simply wanted material benefits. The story of Lizzie can thus be interpreted to underscore Sister Greta’s powerful position and also the meaning she found in her relationships with the youth and children at SIM.
143 Lomfors (1996), p. 212. 144 Pammer (2017), pp. 35-36.
42 5.6. A Clue from Earlier Research II: The Author Ilse Aichinger
The Viennese author Ilse Aichinger (1921-2016) was one of the girls in Sister Greta’s circle. She became an important representative of the German-language postwar literature, and wrote among other things of the persecution she suffered during the Nazi occupation, as her mother was Jewish. She features in Pammer’s research. Aichinger expressed criticism towards SIM later in her life and called their desire to convert “racially impure” girls to Christianity anti-Semitic.145 It is clear from what Pammer writes that she and many others felt completely abandoned by SIM when the missionaries returned to Sweden in 1941. And she gives us an invaluable description of Greta Andrén which I will try to translate from German:
At the time of the worst threat of the Second World War there was in Vienna (IX., Seegasse 9 [basically 16], as far as I remember) a place, one could almost say, a branch of Jewish conversion, the “Swedish Mission”, with Swedish and Jewish pastors, deaconesses – Pastor Hedenquist, Johannes Jelinek [sic. S.W.], and, almost the star above them, Sister Greta Andreen [sic. S.W.], called “Lillemor” by the worshippers of the group, little mother.
She was idolized, had the just a little suspicious charisma which is often common for ring- and travel leaders, also coachmen and their calm horses under the un-expanded tower of the Viennese Stephen’s Cathedral or in front of the Sacher and other prohibitive accommodations. The evenings at Seegasse were “accessible”, one came there quickly and on foot, and the strangeness of the surroundings quickly subsided, the closer one came to the Swedes and their Mission.146
Aichinger also wrote a poem called “Seegasse”, quoted by Pammer:
Seegasse The Ark of Noah passed by on the canal. The Negro, who guarded the car of his commander in front of the barbed wire saw it. He recognized it by the white goose, which sat on top and flapped with the wings, but did not say anything.
145 Ibid., p. 126. 146 Pammer (2017), p. 127. Brackets in original tex unless otherwise noted.
43 The little balls jump high on the flat roof, but the old woman, who lied in the bed by the window, is no longer there. Whom shall we tell that we are in a new order? The street which leads to the water is empty. On the waterside the bees gather and look for their last queen.147
Pammer asks if the last sentence could refer to Greta Andrén – a queen among the children of her circle. I would argue that this is a reasonable interpretation. That she was called “little mother” by people surrounding her is not supported by any of the source material I have read or by other research, but it is not out of the question and would certainly befit a person of her position. It could also imply a mother-like relationship to those around her, especially youth and children. Sister Greta is ascribed the charisma of people who are able to get things done, but not always in an honest or honourable way. She is also the star above even the pastors. It seems that her personality combined with the work which was mentioned as invaluable brought her to this position. She would certainly had needed that type of charisma for the different tasks she took on in as difficult a milieu as National Socialist Vienna.
6. Conclusions
In the everyday world of Sister Greta we see a triad of meaning rising in the symbols “child”, “work”, and “God”. They fit in every one of the four categories I drew up in the method section: everyday-faith, meaning-faith, everyday-action, meaning-action. Andrén’s everyday faith was the signs she saw around her, especially in the children. The meaning of faith was to be a child before God. Through her everyday actions, she worked among the living signs of the Lord, and the signs, the meaning of the signs, and the constant discovery of new signs all gave meaning to the actions she was compelled to perform. This compulsion, whether rooted in psychology or divinity, drove her to work beyond the point of exhaustion, but as far as I can tell she found that this was a price worth paying for continuing to live in a world filled to the brim with meaning. I will now go on to examine the these symbols more closely.
147 Pammer (2017), p. 124. The original poem goes: Seegasse Die Arche Noah ist auf dem Kanal vorbeigefahren. Der Neger, der vor dem Stacheldraht den Wagen seines Kommandanten bewachte, hat sie gesehen. Er erkannte sie an den weißen Gans, die obenauf saß und mit den Flügeln schlug, aber er hat nichts gesagt. Die kleinen Bälle springen hoch auf dem flachen Dach, aber die alte Frau, die in dem Bett am Fenster lag, ist nicht mehr da. Wem sollen wir erzählen, daß wir in einem neuen Orden sind? Die Straße, die zum Wasser führt, ist leer. Am Ufer unten sammeln sich die Bienen und suchen ihre letzte Königin.
44 6.1. Children as Signs
Throughout her work in Vienna it was the Jewish-Christian children who were among the primary subjects of Greta Andrén’s everyday world. It is evident that she found the meaning of her efforts in their well-being and conversion to Lutheran Christianity. Adults figured in her everyday world, and her everyday actions were divided between caring for the children and youths, and receiving or visiting adult Jews and Jewish-Christians throughout Vienna. However, because Andrén consistently returns to the theme of children as teachers and examples, and to the necessity to become like a child, I would argue that her everyday world was centred on children with adults being statists. It is clear, however, that the statist adults could become actors if they followed the examples of children. This was not only Andréns psychological attitude, but a Christian sentiment with its root in Matthew 18:3 which Andrén quotes. In the source material, we see an example of this in the case of the soldier who wept while reading psalms. Sister Greta writes that it was as if though he had become a child for a short time. It was her group of protégés who had shown him the way back to the wondrous view of the Lord that is the privilege of a child. They had not only remained signs for her, but also become signs for the soldier. Another example is the girl who spoke to the youth circle about living Christianity. “No one had anything to add!” The clarity of the girl’s sentiment was undeniable – it was an expression or a sign of God’s will, or at the very least completely aligned with it. A view of children as signs of meaning would explain Andrén possibly turning more and more possessive of them during her time in Vienna. I have found some evidence to support this, but would need to conduct a larger study in order to prove it. It is clear that Andrén was a product of the revival movement. Her version of everyday piety shows it. That version fits best with Gunner’s models D and T, as she quite obviously believed in signs, and worked to prepare as many individuals as possible for the Second Coming. The latter is never stated, but it is reasonable to infer it from her being a missionary, as well as from clues such as the one about Mrs. F. - a feeble woman read scripture and wanted to understand as much as possible of the sermons she heard, and went on to serve God in the darkest of situations, becoming a subject once she had assumed her position as a Christian.148 Why, then, did she focus on signs?
6.2. Signs as Charism
148 SIM in general seems to have believed that the suffering of the Jews was righteous, and it is not a great stretch of the imagination to fit this idea into the results found here. However, to prove such a conclusion, further research would have to be conducted.
45 Sister Greta did not only see signs because she was a Christian woman from a denomination inclined to see signs, but also because she was called to do so in her role as a missionary. I draw this conclusion from her focus on wanting to preach with the use of signs. The texts by her which I have read have not been treatises on theology, but testimonials. Sister Greta bore witness of the signs in the world, constantly leaving traces for others to follow so that they may see the God she saw communicating through the clues she perceived. Thus, she was both a practitioner of the clue- centred paradigm and a proponent of it, wanting her readers and probably also the people she met in her everyday world to utilise it as well. Ginzburg mentions divination as one of the crafts using clues. Though seemingly not as focused on the apocalypse as others, Andrén nonetheless wanted to gain access to the divine. Had she been male, it is not unreasonable to think that she would have become a priest. Her life as an unmarried servant of the Lord, toiling together with other deaconesses as well as priests, much resembles that of a nun, and if she hadn’t been a Swedish Lutheran but a Catholic in another country, she might have become one. Yet as it were, even though she saw signs around her in the everyday world, she did not live a contemplative life. Why was this?
6.3. Charisma as Action
As a missionary, Sister Greta was called to give others access to the divine as well. Ilse Aichinger describes the means of giving access – Andréns charisma – as the characteristic of a ringleader or a travel guide.149 I do not see it as a characteristic, but as an action. It was not only the tool, but the mode of being, by which she gave, helped, and preached. Giving, helping, and preaching are all examples of Christian charismata. If those actions were all performed in the mode of charisma, relying on it and being bolstered by it, then charisma was her charism. The constant acts of giving, helping, and preaching are described as “invaluable” by the pastors. Both Sisters Greta and Anna-Lena seem to have worked hard and with the gusto befitting a deaconess. Anna-Lena Peterson also worked with suffering Jews and Jewish-Christians, albeit more with the elderly, as far as I can tell. Why was Sister Greta “invaluable”? Was it not because of her charisma? Was it not because she performed all of her duties in this mode of being – because she made charisma an action and not a mere characteristic? And was it not thus that she found meaning in her everyday world?
149 Which is ironic or prophetic, as Andrén would later receive travellers to the Swedish Theological Institute in Jerusalem.
46 Let us further note the power she wielded as a result of her charisma. Not only was she invaluable to the pastors – and, it must be assumed, the children – but she could arrange for rules to be amended or broken, or for one outcome rather than in matters regarding personnel. It seems that Aichinger’s choice of words - “ringleader” - was not taken entirely out of the blue.
6.4. Action as Meaning
I would argue that the forceful Sister Greta was driven by her actions. Faith and actions justified one another, but without her faith, Andrén would have found something else to justify the actions. I base this conclusion on her obsession with work, her seeking the profession of deaconess before choosing a context in which to practice it (that is, a context of symbols of meaning), and her drive to be a part of all aspects of Seegasse. This in turn meant that a theological setback was nowhere near as troubling to her as setbacks in actions or results. Being proven wrong regarding the Jews as a religious sign was not as painful as learning that one of her protégés had been institutionalized due to paranoia. Andrén did have protégés, and the great charisma mentioned by Aichinger might very well have been a tool to keep them around. Thus, if actions were the primary motive for Andrén, her own charisma itself became a source of meaning. llse Aichinger’s poem presents a queen-like figure surrounded by bees, which Pammer interprets as Greta Andrén and the children she gathered around her. I share this interpretation. But after conducting this study, I must state my conclusion that the roles were in reality – Andrén’s reality – reversed: it was the children who were the kings and queens of the world, and “Sister Greta” was their worker bee. Whether because of her own history or because of the command of her true king, Christ, that she be like the children, I cannot say, but it is obvious that the signs she saw around her made her more childlike, and gave meaning – a childish meaning – to her world. For this world to keep existing, and for the signs to keep showing themselves, she was required to keep working. She wants to invite the readers of her works into this childish world, but previous research has not seen the invitation, because it has assumed that her world was a macro-world of politics, war, genocide, and theological movements. This is not to say that theologians have never written on Matthew 18:3, but that the existing research on SIM’s history has not been micro-historical, and thus not concerned itself with the clues left behind by Greta Andrén in an effort to reconstruct the world she wanted to share with the public. Had it done so, the researchers would have realised how her everyday world revolved around this triad of children, work, and God – or rather, perhaps, that her everyday faith and actions found their meaning in her work with children and the signs they provided her with, enabling her to become childlike herself at the feet of her Lord.
47 7. Sources 7. 1. Non-printed Sources
Svenska kyrkans arkiv, Uppsala. Svenska Israelsmissionen/Riksorganisationen Kyrkan och Judendomen, RKJ. E6a Korrespondens Wien E6a:7 (1925-1948) E6a:8 (1938-1957) E6a:9 (1939-1949) E6a:10 (1940-1947) E6a:11 (1942-1946)
7. 2. Printed Sources.
ANDRÉN, Greta (1938): Hälsning från Syster Greta. In Missionstidning för Israel, Vol. 65, December (No:12), pp. 304-306.
- (1940): Glimtar ur vårt vardagsliv i Wien. In Missionstidning för Israel, Vol. 67, December (N:o 12), pp. 319-322.
- (1941): De våra i Polen. In Missionstidning för Israel, Vol. 69, November (N:o 11), pp. 313-316.
ASKLUND, Seth (1939): Bilder och intryck från Wien. In Missionstidning för Israel, Vol. 66, February (N:o 2), pp. 44-47.
- (1940): När Wien är ett minne. In Missionstidning för Israel, Vol. 67, January 1940 (No:1), pp. 9- 13.
HEDENQUIST, Göte and Andrén, Greta (1938): Julen i Wien. In Missionstidning för Israel, Vol. 65, February (No:2), pp. 37-44.
PERNOW, Birger (1938): Ny missionär. In Missionstidning för Israel, Vol. 65, August-September (No:8-9), pp. 226-229.
- (1940): Från vårt utlandsarbete. In Missionstidning för Israel, Vol. 68, September (N:o 9), pp. 230-233.
PETERSON, Anna-Lena (1939): Julhälsning från Wien.In Missionstidning för Israel, Vol. 66, February (N:o 2), pp. 47-51.
Svenska Israelsmissionens årsberättelse för 1938 (1939). In Missionstidning för Israel, Vol. 66, July (N:o 7), pp. 180-185, 203-216.
Svenska Israelsmissionens årsberättelse för 1940 (1941. In Missionstidning för Israel, Vol. 69, July- August (N:o 7-8), pp. 196-227.
WERMCRANTZ, Ingrid (1940): Nu så kommer julen, nu är julen här... In Missionstidning för Israel, Vol. 68, February (N:o 2), pp. 38-44.
48 7.3. Electronic Sources
Svenskt Kvinnobiografiskt Lexikon: Greta Ebba Sofia Andrén, www.skbl.se/sv/artikel/GretaEbbaSofiaAndren. (article by Håkan Bengtsson), visited 2021-02-04.
8. Literature
BESSERMAN, Anna (1991) – Den lågkyrkliga väckelsens syn på judar och judendomen. In Nyström, Kerstin (ed.): Judarna i det svenska samhället. Identitet, integration, etniska reliationer, pp. 51-78. Lund University Press, Studentlitteratur.
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