Socialism in Yiddish

Opposition became the Bund's condition of existence but not oppositionfor its own sake. The Bund was founded on the conviction that theJewish question could only be resolved through the liberation of theinternational working class from all forms of oppression on its way toestablishing a world of equality welfare and democracy without borders- a socialist social order. There the broad strata of the population wouldrule rather than capitalist elites or communist party apparatchiks.The Bund was one of the losers of history. The once deeply-rooted movementwas crushed during terror and genocide dispersed into exile driveninto its shell by overpowering political forces and undermined by assimilationas time wore on and the world changed. The following story is aboutthat process at the micro-level in a place on the edge of the world.In this unique account Håkan Blomqvist relates a largely unknownchapter in both the historiography of the Swedish labor movement andin Swedish-Jewish history that of the non-Zionist Jewish Arbeter Bundamong refugees in Sweden during and after World War II.