| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Anita Gradin Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Jane Scherr |
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Ambassador Gradin, welcome to Berkeley.
Thank you very much.
Where were you born and raised?
I'm born in the north of Sweden. My father was a pepper mill worker, so he was active in the trade union. My parents were also active in the non-alcoholic movement.
The non-alcoholic ... which movement?
Which means that they were teetotalers.
Right, so for prohibition?
Yes.
Were you the first woman in your family to go into politics?
I'm the first woman to have a higher education also. And my mentor was very much my grandmother, you could say.
In what way was she your mentor?
Because she was very anxious that I should have an education; I should not stay in this industrial area and get married to one of the boys in the factory or whatever. She was born in 1872. She wanted very much to be a teacher, but her father told her that that was nothing for girls. So then she sort of got her ambition into me, and wanted me very much to be a teacher.
But you chose politics. How did your parents influence your character, do you think, in retrospect?
I was a school child during the Second World War. Of course, this influenced the talks at the dinner table about Nazis, about what was going on. And in our school we had schoolmates who were from Finland, so they were concerned about what happened in Finland, because they were sent to Sweden without their parents to escape the Russian invasion into Finland. We were very much concerned about what happened to their parents, about the bombings in Finland. So I would say that that influenced me very much; that [was the greater influence] for me, these crying Finnish children, longing for their parents.
What sort of books did you read during this period? Were you following the newspapers a lot?
Very much following the newspapers. The grandmother was living with us and she was also explaining. Because when it came to camps and what happened to the Jews and whatever, that was very difficult to understand for a child. But she had time and she could explain what a horrible thing a war was.
Do you think she was better able to do that because she was a woman? Or is that not really relevant?
No, I think it was because she had perspective from the First World War.
I see.
She had experienced the First World War, and she had time.
Where did you go to school?
In the area.
And university?
Not at that time. I started as a journalist and had some training. And then later, it was as late as in 1958 when I went to a university.
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