Padborg ("White Buses")

In Padborg, near the Danish-German border, the Danish Red Cross established a quarantine station in anticipation of the possible evacuation of Scandinavian prisoners and concentration camp prisoners to Sweden. The rescue of Scandinavian prisoners had been made possible thanks to negotiations between Count Folke Bernadotte, vice-president of the Swedish Red Cross, and Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. On 20 April 1945, over 4,000 Danish and Norwegian prisoners were taken from the Neuengamme concentration camp to Denmark on the “White Buses” of the Red Cross. Their first stop was Padborg, where they were given medical treatment, new clothes and something to eat before they continued on to Sweden.

The Swedish Red Cross was subsequently able to rescue at least 10,000 more concentration camp prisoners, including over 7,000 women from the Ravensbrück concentration camp and around 2,000 women from satellite camps of the Neuengamme concentration camp. All of them were first cared for in Padborg before finally being taken out of German territory and into neutral Sweden.