Brian Traantoft Rasmussen and Thomas Græsbøll Svaneborg. Flugten fra Stalin [The Escape from Stalin]. Gads Forlag, 2025, 352 pages.
I met Brian Traantoft Rasmussen and Thomas Græsbøll Svaneborg last year at the 7th Baltic Heritage Network conference “Eighty Years after 1944: Then and Now,” which took place on June 26–28 in Vilnius, Lithuania. They were the latecomers and joined the conference only at the last minute. At the conference, Brian and Thomas talked about their upcoming book Flugten fra Stalin to be published by Gads Forlag in 2025, which, the authors argued, would contribute new important knowledge about the allied refugees in Denmark, IRO and human destinies on the run across time and space.
The book came out in the spring of 2025. Escape from Stalin is about the people who pay the price when great powers fight, and when the escape is the only option. It is a story about real human destinies and about their encounter with Denmark. A story that has only become more relevant with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and the fear of the Baltic people that they will again be forced to flee to the West.
When the WWII ended in May 1945, more than 30,000 so-called non-German refugees and prisoners of war ended up in Denmark. The refugees had survived the winter cold, bombing and the perilous journey across the Baltic Sea, and during their yearlong stay in Denmark, they tested the limits and grey areas of Danish hospitality. Because in the wake of the liberation, few Danes understood that many of them had lost their homeland to the Soviet Union and therefore could not possibly return home.
Collectively, they were referred to as allied displaced persons (DP) or “non-German refugees.” They became a unique group in the international refugee system as they, unlike the German refugees, were protected from forced repatriation by international agreements. In 1948, Denmark joined the United Nations International Refugee Organization (IRO), which in the following four years entered a labor migration collaboration with countries such as USA, Australia, Argentina and Canada in the hope of giving the DPs a new home. Approximately 4,500-5,000 of those refugees, primarily Poles and refugees from the Baltics accepted the overseas offers.
The Danish authorities closed the last refugee camp in Denmark in 1953. At that time, there were about 1,100 allied refugees left in the country. Some were too old, sick or affected by PTSD to leave or move on, others had married well, received an education and were assimilated into the Danish society.
The book Escape from Stalin is based on local, national and international archival research, interviews and memories from more than 25 refugees and descendants, as well as letters and diaries from some of the Danes they met in Denmark.
The book was launched at end of March of 2025 at the historical conference “Historiske Dage” in Copenhagen, Denmark. In his letter, one of the authors of the book, Thomas Græsbøll Svaneborg, wrote that there are indications that the book may also be interested in places other than Denmark. The Danish embassies in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have expressed an interest in the book and plan to use it in their cultural events and debates in the autumn of 2025. The Danish Cultural Institute is working on sponsoring a translation of part of the book into English.
Dalia Cidzikaitė