The purpose of this work is to explore how the interns and those who worked in the Swedishinternment camp in Rengsjö viewed their time there and if their behavior and thoughtschanged during it. It compares this to the theory of historian Michael Fuccault regardingphysical and mental punishments on people. It is also compared with the work of author andholocaust survivor Primo Levi who was a jewish man who survived Auscwich and wrote inhis books how the prisoners and guards were in a constant psychological battle where thegoal was to dehumanize the people to make the workers feel less guilt while putting theprisoners through horrible punishment. This in combination with Michael Foucault's theorythat punishments of the soul were more profitable in terms of the prisoners' debt to the state,will provide a good foundation to the main theory regarding this work: static and floatingstatuses for the human involved in the situation.Within the internment camp in Rengsjö the main objective of the camp was to detain andstore away people that the Swedish government saw as dangerous for Sweden’s situationduring world war 2. They had access to some benefits such as getting paid for their work sothat the interns could purchase items of comfort like cigarettes and coffee. If the internsmisbehaved they would get punished with various punishments such as withheld rights tomoney or furlough. But it was not just the interns that had their daily life within the camp butalso the director and guards. In this work, four individuals are analyzed based on theirposition within the camp: two interns, one guard and the last director of the camp. Thesewere chosen based on their appearances in the many official documents from the campwhich the national archives in Stockholm provided.In this work it is shown that the interns and the people working within the camp were in aconstant struggle regarding what counted as “normal” in the daily life and if it was disturbedsituations escalated to either violence or psychological stress It is also shown that eachintern followed a pattern which lead to them being unruly and even the guard analyzednoticed this and so did the director of the camp. The prisoner came to the camp, started towrite letters that got censored, they stopped to write letters, they were allowed a temporaryleave to go somewhere and when the intern returned that violent and depressed state tookhold of them. Most likely due to the intern wanting to return to freedom and the things theypreviously had during the leave.It has also been shown in this work that Foucault was right regarding his theory ofrehabilitating prisoners with the psychological punishments being more effective in dealingwith prisoners. However; he forgot one crucial part: the dimension of the soul and the “me” ofthe person in question. The prisoners in this internment camp had no issues with doingphysical labor but when their everyday life and the small golden nuggets of their day gotremoved they reacted more violently and depressed. Especially when the prisoners felt likethey were treated like something sub-human. Such is clear when you look at the variousincidents and the new rules and regulations the last director ordered to try and combat thisexact thing during the time he was present. / I detta arbete undersöks Rengsjö interneringsläger och hur fångarna samt personer somarbetade i lägret utvecklades under tiden som lägret var i bruk. Frågorna som besvaras är:Hur utvecklades människorna som var internerade i Rengsjö interneringsläger under derastid i lägret? Finns det en tydlig brytpunkt när deras tankar, agerande eller värderingarändrades och vad var den utlösande faktorn till detta?Detta görs utifrån Michael Focault och Primo Levis teori och tankar som grundas i hur brottoch straff förändrar oss människor till det bättre eller sämre beroende på vad syftet för ensvistelse i ett fängelse eller förläggning är. Arbetet förklarar också min egen teori somframförallt utvecklar Primo Levis tankar om att fångarna vill behålla sitt “jag” och inte bli ensiffra. Det jag menar är att vi människor befinner oss i olika tillstånd, statusar som vi känneross bekväma eller obekväma i, där det ena är statiskt och allt är som vanligt eller ett flytandetillstånd där någonting i vårt statiska tillstånd har rubbats.Från officiella dokument till handskrivna brev undersöks fyra öden som ofta återkommer idessa dokument: Simon Janovsky och Thor Ludvigsen som var internerade i lägret. Bådatvå visar i dokumenten en tidslinje som enkelt kan analyseras om varför utfallet blev som detblev för dem i lägret: de blev intagen till lägret, uppvisar ofördelaktigt beteende en kortperiod, skriver brev som blir censurerade, får permission efter en viss tid, kommer tillbakafrån permissionen och blir sedan våldsam och bryter ihop. Ett mönster som förekommerbland fler internerade i lägret.Även Larks Kaneskog och Birger Högbom undersöks i detta arbete för att se om det finns entydlig punkt där deras beteende ändrades och den har hittats: fångdemonstrationen 16November 1944 när internerna lämnade in en protestlista och gick sedan ut från lägret medavsikten att ta sig till Bollnäs för att prata med lokaltidningen Ljusnan för bättre villkor i lägret.Vilket också blev resultatet även om fångarna inte lyckades ta sig till Bollnäs.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kau-98206 |
Date | January 2023 |
Creators | Palmborn Olofsson, Fredrik |
Publisher | Karlstads universitet |
Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
Language | Swedish |
Detected Language | English |
Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
Format | application/pdf |
Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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