In 2025 it will be 80 years since the end of World War II. What was it like to live in Sweden during the war? How were people affected by everything that happened so close to home? SVT has asked the Swedish people to send in their memories: letters, films, photographs and diaries and several thousand responses were received from all over the country.
DirectorsKristina Lindström, Henrik Stockare
Episode 1 The outbreak
May 11, 2025
Sweden is unprepared when Germany attacks Poland on September 1, 1939. Two months later, the Soviets drop bombs on Helsinki. Swedish volunteers go to the Finnish Winter War and our authorities begin to hunt down and internecine Swedish communists.
Episode 2 Surrounded
May 18, 2025
On April 9, 1940, the Swedish people wake up to the news that Denmark and Norway have been occupied by Nazi Germany. We are neighbors with evil. Our troops are positioned in the north towards the Finnish border and we are unprotected along the borders with Denmark and Norway
Episode 3 The Children of War
May 25, 2025
The war is entering its third year. Finland is now also on the side of the Nazi regime against the Soviet Union, in what is called the Continuation War, and tens of thousands of Finnish war children are coming to Sweden. Resistance is growing against the Swedish government's policy of appeasement
Episode 4 The Turning Point
Jun 1, 2025
Things are starting to go badly for Germany in the war and the Allies are putting pressure on Sweden. Are we going to continue to allow the German transit trains? Are we going to open the borders to the Danish Jews? Which side does Sweden really want to be on?
Episode 5 Peace
Jun 8, 2025
It is the summer when the transit trains stop rolling through Sweden. When we can no longer turn a blind eye to the extermination camps. Germany is losing on front after front, but the deportations of Europe's Jews continue. Tens of thousands of people come from Finland with their livestock as the Nazis retreat and burn villages and houses
