Folke Bernadotte

Count Folke Bernadotte (January 2, 1895 - September 17, 1948), is noted for his negotiation for the release of prisoners from the German concentration camps in World War II.

He was the son of Prince Oscar Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg (formerly Prince Oscar of Sweden) and his wife, née Ebba Henrietta Munck af Fulkila. Oscar, the brother of King Gustavus V of Sweden, married without the King's permission, thereby leaving the royal family, and was given the title Count of Wisborg by the Grand Duchess of Luxemburg .

Bernadotte, while president of the Swedish Red Cross in 1945, attempted to negotiate an armistice between Germany and the Allies. Just before the end of World War II he gained much good will leading a rescue operation transporting interned Norwegians, Danes and other inmates from German Concentration Camps to hospitals in Sweden. In the "White Buses" of the Bernadotte-expedition 27,000 persons where liberated, a considerable share of them Jews.

In 1948 he became the United Nations' mediator in Palestine, but was assassinated, along with UN observer Andre Serot, on September 17th in Jerusalem by members of the Zionist terror organization "Lehi", generally known as the Stern gang.

Bernadotte's plan called for the right of Palestinian refugees to return. In particular he claimed that it was unreasonable that Jews with no previous connection with Palestine could enter the country, while Palestinians who had just been forced too flee could not return to their villages. This statement, and also his recommendation that Jerusalem should be placed under effective UN control, provoked immense anger within the Zionist leadership and is believed to have triggered the assassination.