De som aldrig återvände
Hur Kroppa landskommun drabbades av spanska sjukan
Wermland was affected by the Spanish flu like the Swedish national average, about a half percentage of Wermlands population would lose their lives to the flu during the autumn 1918. The flu has for many fallen into oblivion. This oblivion is so wide spread that it´s possible to talk about a "collective forgetfulness". The society have selected to remember 1918 for "when the guns went quiet on the western front" and not for the millions who died from the treacherous Spanish flu. The world had already suffered enough from the four years of war that had been fought, thus the victims of the flu would be honored but would soon fade in to oblivion. When you investigate deeper you get the picture that the national average don´t do Wermland and its cities or rural areas any justice when a large variations seems to occur within regional areas. One of Sweden's hardest effected cities was Kristinehamn and some miles north of this city you could find Kroppa rural county. This small county focused on iron works has two small central communities. Both of them had iron/tube mill owned by the same company, Storfors Bruk AB. During the autumn of 1918, Kroppa came in firsthand experience the Spanish flu and it´s expansion, which will get considerable effects how people in these areas could live their lives. As this wouldn´t be enough a diphtheria epidemic would also cause havoc and despair in Kroppa at the same time as the flu. The diphtheria will harvest new victims from a group that during the flu had been relative safe, the children. Even that Kroppa rural county experience a difficult period there behavior will prevent that fear are spread to the public.