Elin Ylvasdotter om Skammen vi ärvde

The Holocaust took place beyond Sweden’s borders – but the era also shaped life here. In Skammen vi ärvde, two worlds meet: a Jewish woman who carries fear and shame about her identity, and a man from a family with strong Nazi sympathies. Against all odds, they fall in love.

Drawing on a family story inspired by real events, Elin Ylvasdotter discusses Swedish antisemitism and Nazism, Jewish life during the war years and Sweden’s relationship with Nazi Germany. She also talks about her decision to write a novel: to use fiction to try to approach what the archives cannot tell us about love, shame and Jewish life in Sweden during the Holocaust.

We also trace the echoes of history through the generations. From Sweden in the 1930s and 1940s to our own time, when the ideas of the past are once again making themselves felt. What happens when history no longer feels distant? What do we carry with us from previous generations, and what do we have a responsibility not to pass on?

Elin Ylvasdotter is the author of the debut novel Skammen vi ärvde, a story inspired by real events about an unlikely love in Sweden during the Second World War. Drawing on her own family history, she writes about Jewish life, antisemitism and Swedish Nazi sympathies, but also about how our present resembles the past all too closely. By extending the story into our own time, she also explores what history can tell us about the presence of antisemitism in Sweden today.