The Royal Court

Seminar to commemorate Folke Bernadotte

Count Folke Bernadotte. Photo: Scanpix

Count Folke Bernadotte. Photo: Scanpix

On 7 September, The King and Queen attended a seminar to commemorate Folke Bernadotte. The seminar took place in the Bernadotte Library, and was arranged by Society and Defence.

Folke Bernadotte


Count Folke Bernadotte was the UN's first mediator, and was murdered on 17 September 1948 in Jerusalem.

He was, like Prince Gustaf Adolf, strongly committed to the Scout movement, and was head of the Swedish Guide and Scout Association in 1937 and chair of the Swedish Guide and Scout Council in 1947. In 1943, he became deputy chair of the Swedish Red Cross. During the Second World War, he led several rescue missions on behalf of the Red Cross. In the spring of 1945, he led the mission involving the “white buses", which saved around 30,000 people from the concentration camps.

Folke Bernadotte Academy


2002 saw the establishment of the Folke Bernadotte Academy, a state authority with the overall task of reinforcing and developing Swedish and international capacity in relation to conflict and crisis management, with a particular focus on peace efforts.

Speakers


The seminar was led by chair of Society and Defence, Vanja Lundby-Wedin, and afterwards she gave Count Folke Bernadotte af Visborg a personal account of his father and his deeds.

Minister for Defence Sten Tolgfors gave an outline of Swedish defence policy then and now, entitled "Defence policy, tradition and renewal".

Gunilla Herolf, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, spoke of "Peace promotion operations from 1948 to the present day".

Henrik Landerholm, Director-General of the Folke Bernadotte Academy, talked about the academy's work.

Pierre Schori concluded the seminar with an appeal "to protect our peacekeepers and give them a clear mandate, and not least to protect the UN".

The moderator was Lars Adaktusson.