Drottningholm 3rd Class

It is the duty of the 3rd Class Chief Steward:

• to supervise that male passengers do not enter the female departments, and that passengers, except in the case of illness, leave their cabins at the announced time for cleaning, and that female passengers are in their cabins by 10 p.m.
  
• to ensure that no unauthorized persons visit the 3rd class departments. 1st and 2nd class passengers have no reason or right to visit or intrude to that area, unless they have the written permission by the Captain or the Purser.

Bartenders

• The Bartenders will keep the bars open and service obtainable therein at hours set by the Company. In 2 nd and 3 rd class, the bartenders will also serve beverages ordered in the dining room. In the 3rd class dining room and bar, only beer and soda is to be served.
  
• In the 1st class beverages may be served in exchange for a signed receipt, for which payment is to be collected on the day before arrival, at the latest, after which only payment in cash will be accepted.
  
• In 2nd and 3rd class, beverages may only be served in exhange for payment in cash.

The S/S Drottningholm.
Lindblad collection

The S/S Drottningholm.
Lindblad collection

The S/S Drottningholm.
Lindblad collection

The Mercy Ship

During World War II, the Drottningholm was chartered to the United States, British and French governments for the exchange of diplomats and prisoners of war. She made 14 such voyages and carried a total of 18,160 passengers.

For more information about SAL's operations during World War II,
read about the repatriation voyages.

Read the story of a RAMC medical orderly returning home from a POW camp via Gothenburg.

For an eye-witness report of the mercy ship Drottningholm, read about Carl-Otto Claesson, who served 32 years on the bridge.

See a "March of Time" film cliip, showing Drottningholm arriving in US in 1942 with
diplomatic officers leaving Axis nations. The link connects to the Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive at US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Many thanks to Susan Pentlin for this tip.Please note that you can view the clip in full screen mode by a right-button click on the film clip, and choosing zoom.

There is another film clip of the Drottningholm arriving in NY Harbor in 1940. The ship carried Rabbi Joseph I. Schneersohn (1880-1950), the Lubavitcher Rebbe, to freedom from war torn Europe. The film clip is from Lubavitch archives. (Link contributed by David Shatz.)

See a photo of wounded British POW's on the Drottningholm.

Drottningholm visited Port Elizabeth in 1945 on one of her
repatriation voyages. Ivor Markman has contributed this photo.

Read more about the Exchange and Repatriation voyages here.

Olympic Athletes Return to Sweden
on the Drottningholm in 1932

Swedish athletes return from the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles on the Drottningholm.

Passenger list from
Greta Garbo's first voyage
to the U.S.

Greta Garbo and director,
mentor Mauritz Stiller
on the list's supplement

Contributed by Dan Baker

Drottningholm.

Wolfgang Hochman was exchanged on the Drottningholm's August 1944 voyage to England. He was about 9 years old then. He has kept this spoon all these years since as a reminder of the voyage away from occupied Europe. Wolfgang's father was a British veteran of WWI who married a German woman in Leipzig and remained there. They had three children. The oldest daughter was killed at Auschwitz, but the other two children and the parents were at Vittel. Many thanks to Susan Pentlin for this story.