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How the Danes Saved the Jews
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Next week is (for me) the Feast of Trumpets, known in Hebrew as Yom Teruah. (See Feast Calendar.) It’ll be held on a similar date by Rabbinic Judaism.
Coming up is the anniversary of one of the greatest acts of heroism
of the Second World War: the rescue of over 90% of Denmark’s Jewish
population… by ordinary citizens. From History.com:
Denmark is the only nation in Western Europe that saved most of its Jewish population from the Nazis.
In April 1940, German forces invaded
Denmark. They didn’t meet with much resistance. Rather than suffer an
inevitable defeat by fighting back, the Danish government negotiated
to insulate Denmark from the occupation. In return, the Nazis agreed to
be lenient with the country, respecting its rule and neutrality.
However by 1943, tensions had reached a breaking point.
Workers had begun to sabotage the war
effort and the Danish resistance had ramped up efforts to fight the
Nazis. In response, the Nazis told the Danish government to institute a
harsh curfew, forbid public assemblies, and punish saboteurs with death.
The Danish government refused, so the Nazis dissolved the government
and established martial law.
The Nazis had always been a forbidding presence in
Denmark, but now they made their presence known. Danish Jews were among
their first targets. The Holocaust was already in full swing
across occupied Europe, and without the protection of the Danish
government, which had done its best to shield Jews from the Nazis,
Denmark’s Jewish population was in danger.
Then, in late September 1943, the Nazis got word from Berlin that it
was time to rid Denmark of its Jews. As was typical for the Nazis, they
planned the raid to coincide with a significant Jewish holiday—in this
case, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Marcus Melchior, a rabbi, got
word of the coming pogrom, and in Copenhagen’s main synagogue, he
interrupted services.
“We have no time now to continue prayers, said
Melchior. “We have news that this coming Friday night, the night
between the first and second of October, the Gestapo will come and
arrest all Danish Jews.” Melchior told the congregation that the Nazis
had the names and addresses of every Jew in Denmark, and urged them to
flee or hide.
As Denmark’s Jewish population sprang into panicked action, so did
its Gentiles. Hundreds of people spontaneously began to tell Jews about
the upcoming action and help them go into hiding. It was, in the words of historian Leni Yahil, “a living wall raised by the Danish people in the course of one night.”
The Danish people didn’t have pre-existing plans designed to help the
Jews. But nearby Sweden offered an obvious haven to those who were
about to be deported. Neutral and still unoccupied by the Nazis, the
country was a fierce ally. It was also close—in some cases, just over
three miles away from the Danish coast. If the Jews could make it
across, they could apply for asylum there.
Danish culture has been seafaring since Viking
times, so there were plenty of fishing boats and other vessels to
spirit Jews toward Sweden. But Danish fishermen feared losing their
livelihoods and being punished by the Nazis if they were caught.
Instead, the resistance groups that swiftly formed to help the Jews
managed to negotiate standard fees for Jewish passengers, then recruit
volunteers to raise the money for passage. The average price of passage
to Sweden cost up to a third of a worker’s annual salary.
“Among the fishermen there were some who exploited the situation,
just as it is equally clear that there were more who acted without
regard to personal gain,” writes historian Bo Lidegaard.
A boat full of people to escape the Nazis
in Denmark in 1943. Boats were used for some 7,000 Danish Jews who fled
to safety in neighboring Sweden.
AFP/Getty Images
Passage was a terrifying ordeal. Jews congregated in fishing towns,
then hid on small boats, usually 10 to 15 at a time. They gave their
children sleeping pills and sedatives to keep them from crying, and struggled to maintain control during the hour-long crossing. Some boats, like theGerda III, were boarded by Gestapo patrols. Others sailed with gas obtained by careful rationing in towns like Elsinore, where the “Elsinore Sewing Club,” a resistance unit, helped a few hundred Jews make the crossing.
The rescues weren’t always successful. In Gilleleje, a small fishing
town, hundreds of refugees were cared for by locals. But when the
Gestapo arrived, a collaborator betrayed a group of Jews hiding in the
town church’s attic. Eighty Jews were arrested. Others never got word of the upcoming deportations or were too old or incapacitated to seek help. About 500 Danish Jews were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto.
Still, it was the most successful action of its kind during the
Holocaust. Some 7,200 Danish Jews were ferried to Sweden, and of the 500
who were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto, only 51 did not survive
the Holocaust.
The rescue seemed miraculous, but some factors did lead to its
success. Werner Best, the German who had been placed in charge of
Denmark, apparently tipped off
some Jews to the upcoming action and subtly undermined the Nazis’
attempts to stop the Danes from helping Danish Jews. And Denmark was one
of the only places in Europe that had successfully integrated its
Jewish population. Though there was anti-Semitism in Denmark before and
after the Holocaust, the Nazis’ war on Jews was largely viewed as a war
against Denmark itself.
After the war, most Danes refused to take credit for their resistance
work, which many had conducted under false names. Ordinary people who
never considered themselves part of the Danish Resistance passed along
messages, gathered food, gave hiding places or guarded the possessions
of those who left until they returned home from the war.
The rescue of Denmark’s Jews was an extraordinary feat—one that wouldn’t have been possible without ordinary people.
As a result of the rescue and the following Danish
intercession on behalf of the 464 Danish Jews who were captured and
deported to the Theresienstadt transit camp in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, over 99% of Denmark’s Jewish population survived the Holocaust.[1]
Denmark was the only occupied country that actively resisted the Nazi
regime’s attempts to deport its Jewish citizens. On September 28, 1943,
Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a German diplomat, secretly informed the
Danish resistance that the Nazis were planning to deport the Danish Jews. The Danes responded quickly, organizing a nationwide effort to smuggle the Jews by sea to neutral Sweden.
Warned of the German plans, Jews began to leave Copenhagen, where most of the 8,000 Jews
in Denmark lived, and other cities, by train, car, and on foot. With
the help of the Danish people, they found hiding places in homes,
hospitals, and churches. Within a two-week period fishermen helped ferry
7,220 Danish Jews and 680 non-Jewish family members to safety across the narrow body of water separating Denmark from Sweden.
Danish fishermen (foreground) ferry Jews across a narrow sound to safety in neutral Sweden during the German occupation of Denmark. Sweden, 1943. (USHMM Photo)
The clandestine rescue of Danish Jews
was undertaken at great personal risk. The boat pictured below and
several others like it were used by one of the earliest rescue
operations organized by a group of Danes code-named the “Helsingor
Sewing Club.” The escape route they provided, named the “Kiaer Line”
after Erling Kiaer, founder of the “Helsingor Sewing Club,” enabled
several hundred Jews
to escape across a narrow strait to the Swedish coast. On each trip,
the boat carried 12-14 Jewish refugees. Kiaer himself was betrayed and
arrested in May 1944.
The Danish rescue effort was unique because it was nationwide. It was not completely successful, however. Almost 500 Danish Jews were deported to the Theresienstadt (Terezin) ghetto in Czechoslovakia. Yet even of these Jews, all but 51 survived the Holocaust,
largely because Danish officials pressured the Germans with their
concerns for the well-being of those who had been deported. The Danes
proved that widespread support for Jews and resistance to Nazi policies could save lives.
On April 9, 1940, Denmark and Norway were invaded by Nazi Germany.
Realizing that successful armed resistance was impossible and wishing
to avoid civilian casualties, the Danish government surrendered after a
few token skirmishes on the morning of the invasion.
The Nazi German government stated that its occupation was a measure taken against the Allies and that Germany did not intend to disturb the political independence of Denmark.[2] Because the Danish government promised “loyal cooperation” with the Germans, the occupation of Denmark was thus relatively mild at first. German propaganda even referred to Denmark as the “model protectorate,”[3] earning the nickname the Cream Front (German: Sahnefront), due to the relative ease of the occupation and copious number of dairy products.[4]King Christian X retained his throne, and the Danish government, the Rigsdag
(parliament) and the national courts continued to function. Even
censorship of radio and the press was administered by the Danish
government, rather than by the occupying German civil and military
authorities.
During the early years of the occupation, Danish officials repeatedly
insisted to the German occupation authorities that there was no “Jewish
problem” in Denmark. The Germans recognized that discussion of the
“Jewish question” in Denmark was a possibly explosive issue, which had
the potential to destroy the “model” relationship between Denmark and
Germany and, in turn, cause negative political and economic consequences
for Germany. In addition, the German Reich relied substantially upon
Danish agriculture, which supplied meat and butter to 3.6 million
Germans in 1942.[5] As a result, when officials in Berlin attempted to implement anti-Jewish measures in Denmark, even ideologically committed Nazis, such as Reich Plenipotentiary Werner Best, followed a strategy of avoiding and deferring any discussion of Denmark’s Jews.
In late 1941, during the visit of the Danish foreign minister, Erik Scavenius, to Berlin, German authorities there (including Hermann Göring)
insisted that Denmark choose not to avoid its “Jewish problem.” A
Danish anti-Semitic newspaper used these statements as an opportunity
for an attack on the country’s Jews; shortly thereafter, arsonists attempted to start a fire at the Great Synagogue in Copenhagen.
The Danish state responded robustly; the courts imposed stiff fines and
jail sentences on the editors and would-be arsonists, and the
government took further administrative action. Denmark’s punishment of
anti-Semitic crimes during the occupation was interpreted by the German
authorities in Denmark as signaling the Danish view toward any future
measures that might be taken against Denmark’s Jews by the occupiers.
In mid-1943, Danes saw the German defeats in the Battle of Stalingrad and in North Africa
as an indication that having to live under German rule was no longer a
long-term certainty, as it had seemed in 1940. At the same time, the Danish resistance movement was becoming more assertive in its underground press and its increased sabotage
activities. During the summer, several nationwide strikes led to armed
confrontations between Danes and German troops. In the wake of increased
resistance activities and riots, the German occupation authorities
presented the Danish government with an ultimatum on August 28, 1943;
they demanded a ban on strikes, a curfew,
and the punishment of sabotage with the death penalty. Deeming these
terms unacceptable and a violation of national sovereignty, the Danish
government declared a state of emergency. Some 100 prominent Danes were
taken hostage, including the Chief Rabbi Dr. Max Friediger
and a dozen other Jews. In response, the Danish government resigned on
August 29, 1943. The result was direct administration of Denmark by the
German authorities; this direct form of rule meant that the “model protectorate” had come to an end—and with it, the protection the Danish government had provided for the country’s Jews.
From October 1943 Gerda III
boat of the Danish Lighthouse and Buoy Service was used to ferry Jewish
refugees from German occupied Denmark to neutral Sweden. With a group
of some ten refugees on board the vessel set out for her official
lighthouse duties, but detoured to the Swedish coast. The little ship
and her crew (Skipper Otto Andersen, John Hansen, Gerhardt Steffensen
and Einar Tønnesen), ferried some 300 Jews to safety.
Fishermen charged on average 1,000 Danish kroner
per person for the transport, but some charged up to 50,000 kroner. The
average monthly wage at the time was less than 500 kroner, and half of
the rescued Jews belonged to the working class. Prices were determined
by the market principles of supply and demand, as well as by the
fishermen’s perception of the risk. The Danish Resistance Movement took
an active role in organizing the rescue and providing financing, mostly
from wealthy Danes who donated large sums of money to the endeavor. In
all the rescue is estimated to have cost around 20 million kroner, about
half of which were paid by Jewish families and half from donations and
collections.[13]
During the first days of the rescue action, Jews moved into the many
fishing harbors on the Danish coast to await passage, but officers of
the Gestapo
became suspicious of activity around harbors (and on the night of
October 6, about 80 Jews were caught hiding in the loft of the church at
Gilleleje, their hiding place having been betrayed by a Danish girl who was in love with a German soldier).[14]
Subsequent rescues had to take place from isolated points along the
coast. While waiting their turn, the Jews took refuge in the woods and
in cottages away from the coast, out of sight of the Gestapo.
Some of the refugees never made it to Sweden; a few chose to commit suicide; some were captured by the Gestapo en route
to their point of embarkation; some 23 were lost at sea when vessels of
poor seaworthiness capsized; and still others were intercepted at sea
by German patrol boats. Danish harbor police and civil police often
cooperated with the rescue effort. During the early stages, the Gestapo
was undermanned and the German army and navy were called in to reinforce
the Gestapo in its effort to prevent transportation taking place; but
by and large the German military troops proved less than enthusiastic in
the operation and frequently turned a blind eye to escapees. The local
Germans in command, for their own political calculations and through
their own inactivity, may have actually facilitated the escape.[15][16]
Arrests and deportations
In Copenhagen the deportation order was carried out on the Jewish New Year, the night of October 1–2, when the Germans assumed all Jews would be gathered at home. The roundup was organized by the SS who used two police battalions and about 50 Danish volunteer members of the Waffen SS
chosen for their familiarity with Copenhagen and northern Zealand. The
SS organized themselves in five-man teams, each with a Dane, a vehicle,
and a list of addresses to check. Most teams found no one, but one team
found four Jews on the fifth address checked. There a bribe of 15,000
kroner was rejected and the cash destroyed. The arrested Jews were
allowed to bring two blankets, food for three or four days, and a small
suitcase. They were transported to the harbour, Langelinie, where a
couple of large ships awaited them. One of the Danish Waffen-SS members
believed the Jews were being sent to Danzig.[17]
On October 2, some arrested Danish communists witnessed the deportation of about 200 Jews from Langelinie via the ship Wartheland.
Of these, a young married couple were able to convince the Germans that
they were not Jewish, and set free. The remainder included mothers with
infants; the sick and elderly; and chief rabbi Max Friediger and the
other Jewish hostages who had been placed in the Danish internment camp,
Horserød,
on August 28–29. They were driven below deck without their luggage
while being screamed at, kicked and beaten. The Germans then took
anything of value from the luggage. Their unloading the next day in Swinemunde
was even more inhumane, though without fatalities. There the Jews were
driven into two cattle cars, about one hundred per car. During the
night, while still locked in the cattle cars, a Jewish mother cried that
her child had died. For comparison the Danish communists were packed
into cars with “only” fifty people in each; nevertheless, they quickly
began to suffer from heat, thirst and lack of ventilation; furthermore,
they had nothing to drink until they were given filthy water on October
5, shortly before being unloaded in Danzig.[18]
Only some 580 Danish Jews failed to escape to Sweden. Some of these
remained hidden in Denmark to the end of the war, a few died of
accidents or committed suicide, and a handful had special permission to
stay. The vast majority, 464 of the 580, were captured and sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in German occupied Czechoslovakia.[1]
After these Jews’ deportation, leading Danish civil servants persuaded
the Germans to accept packages of food and medicine for the prisoners;
furthermore, Denmark persuaded the Germans not to deport the Danish Jews
to extermination camps. This was achieved by Danish political pressure, using the Danish Red Cross
to frequently monitor the condition of the Danish Jews at
Theresienstadt. A total of 51 Danish Jews—mostly elderly—died of disease
at Theresienstadt, but in April 1945, as the war drew to a close, 425
surviving Danish Jews (a few having been born in the camp) were among
the several thousand Jews turned over by the Germans to Folke Bernadotte of the Swedish Red Cross and transported to Sweden in White Buses.[1] The casualties among Danish Jews during the Holocaust were among the lowest of the occupied countries of Europe. Yad Vashem records only 102 Jews from Denmark who died in the Shoah.[citation needed]
Myth of the Danes and the yellow star
King Christian X was often said to have worn a yellow star in support of the Danish Jews
It has been popularly reported that the Nazis ordered all Danish Jews
to wear an identifying yellow star, as elsewhere in Nazi controlled
territories. In some versions of the myth, King Christian X opted to
wear such a star himself and the Danish people followed his example,
thus making the order unenforceable.[19]
The story is a myth.[20][21]
In fact the story about the King and the Star and other similar myths
originated in the offices of the National Denmark America Association
(NDAA) where a handful of Danish nationals opened a propaganda unit
called “Friends of Danish Freedom and Democracy”, which published a
bulletin called The Danish Listening Post. This group hired Edward L. Bernays, “The father of Public Relation and Spin” as a consultant.[22][23][24] Whether Bernays was the inventor of the story about the King and the yellow star, is not known.
Although the Danish authorities cooperated with the German occupation
forces, they and most Danes strongly opposed the isolation of any group
within the population, especially the well-integrated Jewish community.
The German action to deport Danish Jews prompted the Danish state church and all political parties except the pro-Nazi National Socialist Workers’ Party of Denmark
(NSWPD) immediately to denounce the action and to pledge solidarity
with the Jewish fellow citizens. For the first time, they openly opposed
the occupation. At once the Danish bishops issued a hyrdebrev—a pastoral letter
to all citizens. The letter was distributed to all Danish ministers, to
be read out in every church on the following Sunday. This was in itself
very unusual since the Danish church is decentralized and
non-political.
The unsuccessful German deportation attempt and the actions to save
the Jews were important steps in linking the resistance movement to
broader anti-Nazi sentiments in Denmark. In many ways October 1943 and
the rescuing of the Jews marked a change in most people’s perception of
the war and the occupation thereby giving a “subjective-psychological”
foundation for the myth.
A few days after the roundup, a small news item in the New York Daily News reported the myth about the wearing of the Star of David. Later, the story gained its popularity in Leon Uris‘ novel Exodus and in its movie adaptation. The political theorist Hannah Arendt also mentions it during the discussion of Denmark in her book of reportage, Eichmann in Jerusalem.[25] It persists to the present, but it is unfounded.
“Righteous among the nations”
At their initial insistence, the Danish resistance movement wished to be honored only as a collective effort by Yad Vashem in Israel as being part of the “Righteous Among the Nations“;[26] only a handful are individually named for that honor. Instead, the rescue of the Jews of Denmark is represented at Yad Vashem
by a tree planting to the King and the Danish Resistance movement—and
by an authentic fishing boat from the Danish village of Gilleleje.[27]
Similarly, the US Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. has on permanent
exhibit an authentic rescue boat used in several crossings in the rescue
of some 1400 Jews. Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, the German official who leaked word of the round-up, is also on the Yad Vashem list.[28][29]
Partial list of Danish rescuers
While only a few Danes, mostly non-resistance members who happened to
be known by the Jew he or she helped, made the Yad Vashem list, there
were several hundreds, if not a few thousands, of ordinary Danes who
took part in the rescue efforts. They most often worked within small
spontaneously organized groups and “under cover”. Known only by their
fictitious names they could generally not be identified by those who
were helped and thus not meet the Yad Vashem criteria for the “Righteous
Among Nations” honor. Below is a partial list of some of the more
significant rescuers, both within and outside the formal resistance
movement, whose names have surfaced over the years:[30][31][32][33][34]
Fanny Arnskov
Knud Dyby
Ellen Marie Christensen
Aage and Gerda Bertelsen
Richard and Vibeke Ege
Jørgen Gersfelt
Gunnar Gregersen
Ejler Haubirk
Steffen Hansen
Ole Helwig
Leif B. Hendil
Erik Husfeldt
Signe (Mogensen) Jansen
Robert Jensen
Jørgen Kieler
Elsebeth Kieler
Erling Kiær
Karl Henrik Køster
Thormod Larsen
Gurli Larsen
Steffen Lund
Ebba Lund
Ellen W. Nielsen
Robert Petersen
Paul Kristian Brandt Rehberg
Ole Secher
Find Sandgren
Svenn Seehusen
Erik Stærmose
Henny Sunding
Laust Sørensen
Henry Thomsen
Henry Rasmussen
Børge Rønne
Mogens Staffeldt
Hilbert Hansen
Explanations
Different explanations have been advanced to explain the success of
efforts to protect the Danish Jewish population in light of less success
at similar operations elsewhere in Nazi-occupied Europe:[16][35][36][37]
The German Reich plenipotentiary of Denmark, Werner Best,
while he was the one who actually instigated the roundup by a telegram
he sent to Hitler on October 8, 1943, apparently was too scared. He was
aware of the efforts by Duckwitz to have the roundup cancelled and
obviously also knew about the potential escape of the Jews to Sweden,
but he essentially looked the other way, as did the Wehrmacht (which was
guarding the Danish coast), in order to preserve Germany’s relationship
with Denmark.[38]
Logistically, the operation was relatively easy. Denmark’s Jewish
population was small, both in relative and absolute terms, and most of
Denmark’s Jews lived in or near Copenhagen, only a short sea voyage from
neutral Sweden (typically 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) to 10 kilometres
(6.2 mi)). Although hazardous, the boat ride was easier to conceal than a
comparable land journey.
Since the mid-19th century, a particular brand of romantic nationalism
had evolved in Denmark. The traits of this nationalism included
emphasis on the importance of “smallness”, close-knit communities, and
traditions—this nationalism being largely a response to Denmark’s
failure to assert itself as a great power and its losses in the Gunboat War and the Second War of Schleswig. Some historians, such as Leni Yahil (The Rescue of Danish Jewry: Test of a Democracy, 1969), believe that the Danish form of non-aggressive nationalism, influenced by Danish spiritual leader N. F. S. Grundtvig, encouraged the Danes to identify with the plight of the Jews, even though small-scale anti-Semitism had been present in Denmark long before the German invasion.[39]
Denmark’s Jewish population had long been almost completely
integrated into Danish society, and some members of the small Jewish
community had risen to prominence. Consequently, most Danes perceived
the Nazis’ action against Denmark’s Jews as an affront to all Danes, and rallied to the protection of their country’s citizens.[citation needed]
The deportation of Jews in Denmark came one year after the deportations of Jews in Norway.
That created an outrage in all of Scandinavia, alerted the Danish Jews,
and pushed the Swedish government to declare that it would receive all
Jews who managed to escape the Nazis.[40]
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Passage was a terrifying ordeal. Jews congregated in fishing towns, then hid on small boats, usually 10 to 15 at a time. They gave their children sleeping pills and sedatives to keep them from crying, and struggled to maintain control during the hour-long crossing. Some boats, like theGerda III, were boarded by Gestapo patrols. Others sailed with gas obtained by careful rationing in towns like Elsinore, where the “Elsinore Sewing Club,” a resistance unit, helped a few hundred Jews make the crossing.
Without the uncooperative Danish government to impede them, Denmark’s German occupiers began planning the deportation to Nazi concentration camps of the 7,800 or so Jews in Denmark. The German diplomat Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz unsuccessfully attempted to assure safe harbor for the Danish Jews in Sweden; the Swedish government told Duckwitz it would accept the Danish Jews only if approved by the Nazis, who ignored the request for approval. On September 28, 1943, Duckwitz leaked word of the plans for the operation against Denmark’s Jews to Hans Hedtoft, chairman of the Danish Social Democratic Party. Hedtoft contacted the Danish Resistance Movement and the head of the Jewish community, C.B. Henriques, who in turn alerted the acting chief rabbi, Dr. Marcus Melchior. At the early morning services, on September 29, the day prior to the Rosh Hashanah services, Jews were warned by Rabbi Melchior of the planned German action and urged to go into hiding immediately and to spread the word to all their Jewish friends and relatives.Danish Jews being transported to Sweden
Fishermen charged on average 1,000 Danish kroner per person for the transport, but some charged up to 50,000 kroner. The average monthly wage at the time was less than 500 kroner, and half of the rescued Jews belonged to the working class. Prices were determined by the market principles of supply and demand, as well as by the fishermen’s perception of the risk. The Danish Resistance Movement took an active role in organizing the rescue and providing financing, mostly from wealthy Danes who donated large sums of money to the endeavor. In all the rescue is estimated to have cost around 20 million kroner, about half of which were paid by Jewish families and half from donations and collections.[13]From October 1943 Gerda III boat of the Danish Lighthouse and Buoy Service was used to ferry Jewish refugees from German occupied Denmark to neutral Sweden. With a group of some ten refugees on board the vessel set out for her official lighthouse duties, but detoured to the Swedish coast. The little ship and her crew (Skipper Otto Andersen, John Hansen, Gerhardt Steffensen and Einar Tønnesen), ferried some 300 Jews to safety.
It has been popularly reported that the Nazis ordered all Danish Jews to wear an identifying yellow star, as elsewhere in Nazi controlled territories. In some versions of the myth, King Christian X opted to wear such a star himself and the Danish people followed his example, thus making the order unenforceable.[19]King Christian X was often said to have worn a yellow star in support of the Danish Jews
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