24 Mar Dragongården

Dragongården was the family home of Count Folke Bernadotte. During World War II, Bernadotte was the representative of the Swedish government responsible for the airmen interned there. These airmen came from many different countries, primarily the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. My father, interned airman Herman F. Allen, worked closely with Folke Bernadotte as part of his job in the office of the U.S. Military Air Attache.

Nephew to King Gustav V, Folke had married Estelle Manville, a beautiful American from a New York family in 1928. After they returned to Stockholm they lived for a short time in a family apartment but then moved to what would become their home for the next decades and named it Dragongården. When I learned this I was so surprised to find that it was so close to the American Legation, where my parents working during the war. Bernadotte would often ride a bike to his office at the Swedish Red Cross.

This estate had previously been the regimental mess for the Swedish Royal Life Guards Dragoons.  Folke, an accomplished horseman, had served as one of their officers.  Today the home is the residence of the Chinese ambassador in Stockholm.

Last year when I was in Stockholm with my sisters and brother (Siblings in Sweden) my brother Bill got up early each morning for a run. After we discovered the Proposal Garden, he would head in that direction.  One day he was running on the opposite side of the water way and discovered that he was on a trail called (something like) “Folke Bernadotte Way.”  I can’t find it named on Google Maps but you can see the gravel trail right along the water.

On his morning run, Bill also saw a bust of Folke Bernadotte. This memorial was unveiled in 2011 by Prince Carl Philip who spoke about Bernadotte’s humanitarian leadership in 1945 when the White Buses saved around 15,000 people from Hitler’s concentration camps. It was the biggest single rescue mission of the Second World War, Prince Carl Philip explained in his speech.  In the above map I think I’ve pinpointed the spot thanks to the press release I found online. Now I understand why that location was chosen … it is so near their former home.

Those who made this memorial possible included the Swedish Red Cross and the Swedish Scout Council.  Bernadotte worked for the Swedish Red Cross, and he had a lifelong passion for scouting.

Author Kati Marton wrote about the day that Folke Bernadotte was assassinated in her book A Death in Jerusalem. Folke’s family was home at Dragongården when suddenly twelve year old Bertil heard the tragic news on the radio. “Count Folke Bernadotte has been shot and killed in Jerusalem.”

Bertil rushed to tell his mother. His father had arrived that morning in Jerusalem as a United Nations mediator, was determined to do what he could to bring peace to the Holy Land.  It was September 17, 1948. Sixty-six years ago.

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