In Sweden, the humanitarian aid-related activities and social assistance to refugees are two closely related fields of social work which in the first half of the 20th century were mostly conducted voluntarily within the unpaid sector of philanthropy and within non-governmental institutions.
However, the distress and upheaval after the devastation of the First World War – including the extensive relocation of people from Central Europe to Sweden – demanded a new coordination of activities related to humanitarian aid work in the country. The political situation in the Third Reich during the 1930s led to refuge, that even if not to the expected overwhelming extent, but still to some also reached Sweden.
Until the summer of 1939, when the Municipality for the State Refugee Aid (Nämnden för statens flyktinghjälp) was formed, there was no state support for the refugees, and the assistance to people from Central Europe was organized by the so-called Relief Committees. The Relief Committees were economically supported and organized within the framework of civil society. At the same time, the refuge from the Third Reich marks the beginning of the Swedish refuge aid.
The aim of this presentation is to frame the aid-related activities as driven by two concrete case-studies and to address the question: to what extent did these activities impact the development of the welfare system in the first half of the 20th century in Sweden.