A German troop train in Sweden

Sometime between 1940 and 1944, a Swedish soldier stands guard over a German troop train while German soldiers stretch their legs and two Swedish railway personnel look on. This is one of the trains that my cousin Tolle wrote about. He says the photo is precisely as he remembers it.  Possibly it was actually taken at Kiruna. 

It's from a book by my mother’s sister Kajsa, called We have no right to forget, which examines certain episodes in the Second World War. Kajsa is no longer alive but her husband Per is, and during the war he was in the Danish resistance. 

One of the book’s themes is Swedish neutrality, and there’s a chapter called “When our neutrality was German”. 

The caption to the photo reads: 

“Swedish neutrality? 2,240,000 German soldiers and 100,000 wagon loads of war material were transported on the Swedish railways to and from Norway and Finland during the 3 years of the German transport agreement.”

My den is a mess. I've avoided tidying it up for the past 5 years. Today I had a shot at it, and came across this book which I had long been looking for.