About Holger Crafoord

• the Man
• the Industrialist
• the Philanthropist

Alf Erik Holger Lundquist was born in 1908 in Stockholm, Sweden. His parents' marriage was short-lived, and their only child, Holger, grew up with his mother Hanna. She came from a little farm in the village of Ödestugu in the province of Småland and had opened a grocer's shop in the big city. Holger was lovingly brought up under the reduced circumstances that prevailed.

His mother put great effort into running the grocery business, all the while firmly determined to help her son obtain a good education. After taking his school-leaving certificate at the Östra Real upper secondary school in 1927, Holger enrolled as a student at the Stockholm School of Economics. Business and economics had been part of the young man's world since childhood.

During his studies at the Stockholm School of Economics, Holger Crafoord was discovered by the Scanian industrialist Ruben Rausing and in 1930, at the age of 22 and as the best student at the School, he was recruited by the Åkerlund & Rausing packaging company. He thereby became a resident of the city of Lund and remained so for the rest of his life.

In 1935, Holger married Anna-Greta Löfdal from Helsingborg and the couple had three daughters, Birgitta, Katarina and Margareta. The youngest daughter, Margareta Nilsson, is today a member of the board of trustees of the Crafoord Foundation.

Towards the end of his life, Holger Crafoord suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis. With his death on 21 May 1982, Lund lost one of the great figures in the history of the city.