STOCKHOLM -- Sweden's Prime Minister Goran Persson has taken the first steps toward rewriting Swedish history by admitting his country acted wrongly during World War II, historians and Sweden's Jewish community said Thursday.
In an unexpected statement to parliament on Wednesday, Persson broke 60 years of Social Democratic Party tradition by dropping the defense of neutral Sweden's wartime actions."We will always have to bear the moral and political responsibility for what happened -- or didn't happen -- from the Swedish side during the war," said Persson, who will open an international conference on the Holocaust in Sweden next week.
His statement came as a surprise to Swedish historians and commentators as no prime minister has previously leveled any blame on his own countrymen.
"This is a new situation. There has never been such a strong emphasis on the guilt related to Sweden before," said historian Kristian Berg, director of Stockholm's Historical Museum.
"There is a serious concern about what really happened and admission that we have to look at the facts and where the responsibility lies."
Sweden's wartime neutrality has come under scrutiny in recent years with revelations that it sold iron ore to Nazi Germany for munitions factories and let German troops cross its territory into Finland and Norway so as not to upset Berlin.
A government commission in 1998 found almost half of 37.3 tons of gold Sweden received from Germany's Reichsbank between 1940-44 may have been stolen from Jewish and other war victims despite warnings in 1944 that this could be the case.
"Swedish authorities failed to act or take responsibility. It is sad to say this . . . the government does so with deepest regret," said Persson.
He promised an inquiry to look at changing Sweden's laws that do not permit prosecutions for crimes dating back more than 25 years and announced a government inquiry to uncover all the facts about Sweden's relationship with Nazi Germany and individual Swedes who signed up to fight for Hitler.
A television documentary, aired this month, revealed at least 260 Swedes were members of Hitler's elite Waffen-SS, which played a central role in exterminating European Jews.
Lena Posner-Korosi, chairwoman of the Jewish Community in Stockholm, welcomed Persson's statement and initiatives, which she described as "unique and very strong."
"This is like an apology, and I don't think Sweden now needs to say any more," Posner-Korosi told Reuters.
"It is 55 years since the war ended and there is a new generation. Time helps. If we are going to move ahead, we have to face up to the past in this country."
Tabloid Expressen said Persson, born after the war in 1949, had finally broken the silence of his predecessors who stood loyally by the wartime regime of SDP premier Per Albin Hansson.
"This was a really major moment in the parliament, and unexpected. Persson used unusually strong words when he disassociated himself from the failure to do anYthing during the war years," Expressen said in an editorial.
"He has no personal memories or contact with those times and therefore it is easier for him to have some distance from the sentiment and political realities prevalent then."