“White buses” is the name of the Swedish Red Cross rescue operation carried out in the last months of World War II with the consent of the authorities of Nazi Germany . The stronghold of the operation, which aimed to save and send prisoners of Nazi concentration camps to Sweden, was the estate of the Bismarck family in Friedrichsra .
Under the leadership of the then Vice President of the Swedish Red Cross, Folke Bernadotte, over 15,000 concentration camp prisoners were transported to Sweden in March-April 1945 on white buses with the Red Cross emblem, of which about 8,000 were citizens of Norway and Denmark , and the rest were citizens of another 20 countries but mostly France and Poland . How many of them were Jews is difficult to establish.
Operation White Buses is still considered an exemplary rescue operation, although it is criticized for selecting nationally rescued people.