Karin Kvist Geverts
Researcher at Department of History
- E-mail:
- karin.k.geverts@hist.uu.se
- Visiting address:
- Engelska parken, Thunbergsvägen 3 A
- Postal address:
- Box 628
751 26 UPPSALA
Download contact information for Karin Kvist Geverts at Department of History
Short presentation
I am an Associate Professor in history and the Director of The Institute for Holocaust research in Sweden (IHRS). I work part time at Uppsala University as a researcher in the project "Witnessing for the future. Holocaust, Sweden and Forgotten Early Testimonies" financed by the Swedish research Council (2024-2026) led by Professor Andrej Kotljarchuk (Dnr 2023-05936). Associate Professor Simo Muir also participates in the project.
Keywords
- sweden
- holocaust and genocide studies
- holocaust memory culture
- holocaust history
- testimony studies
Biography
My research is within Holocaust Studies and Antisemitism Studies and has mainly dealt with Sweden but also the Nordic countries.
I defended my dissertation "A Foreign Element within the Nation. Swedish refugee Policy and the Jewish Refugees 1938-1944" in 2008. It deals with Swedish refugee Policy during the Second World War and the Holocaust focusing on the attitudes towards, and treatment of, Jewish refugees. I show how Jewish refugees were discriminated against on the grounds of race even though the officials at the time rejected any accusations of being antisemites. I argue that this can be explained by the antisemitic background noise - i.e. antisemitism was only recognized as such if it was programmatic and violent and therefore other antisemitic notions and expressions were not understood as such but rather as something "normal" and unbiased within society.
After the dissertation, I have written about Antisemitism as a neglected field of research in Sweden, on the challenges of Holocaust education in Sweden, Early Holocaust Memory in Sweden and I was the expert secretary in the Swedish inquiry about a Holocaust Museum (SOU 2020:21).

Publications
Selection of publications
Part of Scandinavian Journal of History, p. 520-535, 2011
Part of En problematisk relation?, p. 7-28, Historiska institutionen, Uppsala universitet, 2008
Recent publications
Part of Historisk Tidskrift, 2025
Antisemitismen: antirasismens blinda fläck?
Part of Från Afrikakompaniet till Tokyo, Bokförlaget Exkurs, 2017
Part of Historisk Tidskrift, p. 172-173, 2015
Part of Coming to Welfare State Sweden, Nordic Academic Press, 2013
Negotiating a dark past in the Swedish-language Press in Finland and Sweden
Part of Finland’s Holocaust, p. 173-193, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013
All publications
Articles in journal
Part of Scandinavian Journal of History, p. 520-535, 2011
Part of Invandrare & Minoriteter, p. 20-23, 2009
Svensk flyktingpolitik under andra världskriget
Part of Tvärsnitt, p. 14-17, 2007
Chapters in book
Antisemitismen: antirasismens blinda fläck?
Part of Från Afrikakompaniet till Tokyo, Bokförlaget Exkurs, 2017
Part of Coming to Welfare State Sweden, Nordic Academic Press, 2013
Negotiating a dark past in the Swedish-language Press in Finland and Sweden
Part of Finland’s Holocaust, p. 173-193, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013
Sweden and the Holocaust: An attempt to make sense of problematic categories and ambivalent actors
Part of Looking at the Onlookers and Bystanders, p. 53-63, Living History Forum, 2012
Part of Dansk jødisk historie i Anden Verdenskrigs epoke, p. 133-145, Dansk Jødisk Museum, 2011
Part of En problematisk relation?, p. 73-94, Historiska institutionen, Uppsala universitet, 2008
Part of En problematisk relation?, p. 7-28, Historiska institutionen, Uppsala universitet, 2008
Från en aktivism till en annan: hur skall Sveriges agerande under andra världskriget förklaras?
Part of Sverige och Nazityskland, p. 148-167, Dialogos, 2007
Collections (editor)
The Histories and Memories of the Holocaust in Scandinavia
Routledge, 2011
En problematisk relation?: flyktingpolitik och judiska flyktingar i Sverige 1920-1950
Historiska institutionen, Univ., 2008
Monograph doctoral thesis
Other
Part of Historisk Tidskrift, 2025
Part of Historisk Tidskrift, p. 172-173, 2015