Atrocity Accounts in Transit

During the Second World War, two Swedish ocean liners brought diplomats, wounded pow s and displaced civilians home to the Americas. The passengers arriving through these Axis-Allied prisoner exchanges were objects of interest not only for the press and families that had been separated by the war but also for intelligence agencies making assessments of enemy resources. A battery of government interviews and questionnaires awaited the newcomers, mining their expertise on the economies and military resources of the places they had left behind. Most of the civilians on board – including some Jewish refugees – had suffered internment, but government officials demonstrated little or limited interest in their experiences of persecution or incarceration under Axis rule. Bearing witness to wartime atrocities under German and Japanese wartime rule pulled these repatriates in two directions. While a number of them were determined to publicise the torture and privations they had seen or experienced in German or Japanese hands, officials and many of their fellow passengers feared enemy reprisals against those left behind and a halt to further prisoner exchanges. The knowledge possessed by refugees and repatriates had some propaganda value for US state officials during the war, but came freighted with serious risks

Criminology · Economic history · Political science · Prisoners of war · Public transport · Sociology · Transit (satellite · World War II · African history and culture studies · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · History · Law