Erdös Palm Agnes - Surviving Hitler : the unlikely true story of an SS soldier and a Jewish woman

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Palm, O. Hkan, 1949 author.

Surviving Hitler : the unlikely true story of an SS soldier and a Jewish woman / O. Hkan Palm.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-60907-847-8 (hardbound : alk. paper)

1. Mormon convertsSweden. 2. World War, 19391945Personal narratives, Jewish. 3. World War, 19391945Personal narratives, Norwegian. I. Title.

BX8693.P34 2014

289.3092'2dc23

[B]2014005302

Printed in Canada

Friesens, Manitoba, Canada

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my parents Gustav and Agnes Erds Palm and for their descendants and all those whose lives they have touched

Helena sterlund

President Thomas S. Monson visiting Gustav and Agnes Erds Palm in their home in Haninge, Sweden, 2005.

Introduction

In 1995, something very special happened, which was a type of benediction on my parents lives and especially my fathers life. President Thomas S. Monson, then First Counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was assigned to divide the Sweden Stockholm Stake. The Mormon Church had grown significantly in Stockholm. Several times during the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, Elder (later President) Monson had visited in Stockholm. I had responsibilities that made it natural for me to meet with him during his visits to Sweden. At one of those visits in 1984, Elder Monson met my parents,

Gustav and Agnes Palm family

Agnes and her mother, Aranka, in newly tailored winter clothes, 1930.

Agnes and Gustav, for the first time, and he learned their life stories. As I interpreted for them, Elder Monson recorded everything in his memory.

Eleven years later, when he arose to speak at the end of the meeting, when all formalities for dividing the Stockholm stake had been completed, President Monson said, This has been a real Palm Sunday. Brother Gustav Palms son-in-law Gsta has been chosen as the president of the new stake. Gustav himself has been given sealing power in the temple. And Gustavs son Hkan has been called to be in the leadership of the second stake.

Then, from memory, President Monson gave a very detailed account of my parents lives. He said he felt the Lord had preserved Agnes and Gustav through the war until they met: my mother as a Jewish Holocaust victim and my father as a voluntary Waffen-SS soldier.

This was the first time my fathers history, including his enlistment in the Waffen-SS, was made public. From where I was sitting on the stand in front of 1,500 attendees, I could observe his facial expressions during the few minutes when his lifes secret was revealed. He sat completely still, and it was difficult to determine what might have been going on in his mind. His knuckles whitened as his hands gripped the armrests of his chair.

Of course, all who knew my father regarded him with respect and admiration for the humble and devoted servant of the Lord that he was, and they continued to do so. I have never heard a single negative comment or sneer relating to my fathers having fought in a German uniform during World War II. So, although he might have been embarrassed by the unexpected revelation in front of so many people, my father instead accepted the fact that an Apostle of the Lord was speaking of the reality of his life. Thus, a new gate was opened for him in the process of becoming reconciled to his past. He didnt have to hide much of himself any longer.

As a Holocaust victim, my mother experienced different postwar challenges. For her, the concentration camp experiences were nothing to be ashamed of, though they did have lasting repercussions.

Here, then, in their own words, is the story of my parents, Agnes and Gustav Palm.

Before the War, 19191939

Agnes

1919, Tpiogyrgye, Hungary

My name is Agnes Veronika Erds Palm. I was born into a Jewish family on May 19, 1919, in Tpiogyrgye, Hungary, about sixty miles east of Budapest, where I lived until I was about six years old. My father was Oszkar Erds, and my mother was Aranka Biliz. I was their only child. Because my father was employed as an overseer on estates owned by members of the aristocracy and later as the director of a big luxury hotel, I grew up as a child of privilege.

Gustav

1922, Spydeberg, Norway

I was born on October 24, 1922, in Spydeberg, in the part of Norway called stfold. My father was Emanuel Palm, born in 1896, and my mother was Maria Haugland, born in 1879 and thus some seventeen years his senior. Because my father was a Swedish citizen, I too was a Swedish citizen, even though we lived in Norway my first seven years. There our farms name was Haugland. It was a small farm, about twenty-five miles south of Oslo.

Gustav and Agnes Palm family

Maria at her home in Haugland, Norway, where she lived with her first husband and their seven children.

In 1918, before I was born, my mother had lost her first husband, a man named Hans Thorgrimsen, to the Spanish influenza. It was a deadly pandemic that spread across much of the world. My mother had seven children with Mr. Thorgrimsen before he died. One day after my mother was widowed, Emanuel Palm happened by and was hired to help with the farmwork. Maria and Emanuel married in 1920 and had three children together, one of those children being me. My younger siblings were Erling and Thea.

Agnes

1923, Tpiogyrgye, Hungary

I remember my first feelings of happiness on a sunny and warm summer day in Tpiogyrgye. My mother was carrying me on her back and singing childrens songs to me, her four-year-old daughter. We went through a small cluster of woods and into our vegetable garden in front of the house where we lived. Suddenly Mother stopped in the middle of the path. She set me down carefully and showed me a creature previously unknown to me. Lovingly, she told me that it was a snail that carried his house on his back and that snails crawl very slowly. Nearby, above the rippling brook, I spied large, shining green dragonflies darting among the reeds in the calmer water, and I could hear birds chirping in the hazelnut trees nearby. Once we reached the vegetable garden, my mother picked young peas and then we walked through the woods together on our very long way home to the manor.