The Danish resistance movement, with the assistance of many Danish citizens, managed to evacuate 7,220 of Denmark's 7,800 Jews, plus 686 non-Jewish spouses, by sea to nearby neutral Sweden during the Second World War.[1] The arrest and deportation of Danish Jews was ordered by the German leader Adolf Hitler, but the efforts to save them started earlier due to the plans being leaked on September 28, 1943, by German diplomat Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz.
The rescue is considered one of the largest actions of collective resistance to aggression in the countries occupied by Germany during the Second World War. As a result of the rescue, and of the following Danish intercession on behalf of the 464 Danish Jews who were captured and deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, 99% of Denmark's Jewish population survived the Holocaust.[1]
Deportation order
Denmark's German occupiers began planning the deportation to Nazi concentration camps of the 7,800 or so Jews in Denmark after it became apparent that the Nazis could not expect the Danish government to support this. 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, 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. 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.[citation needed] 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.
The early phases of the rescue were improvised. When Danish civil servants at several levels in different ministries learned of the German plan to round up all Danish Jews, they independently pursued various measures to find the Jews and hide them. Some simply contacted friends and asked them to go through telephone books and warn those with Jewish-sounding names to go into hiding. Most Jews hid for several days or weeks, uncertain of their fate.
Sweden's readiness and logistics
From October 1943 the boat Gerda III 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 for each trip, the vessel set out for her official lighthouse duties before detouring to the Swedish coast. Between the lighthouse manager's daughter Henny Sinding Sundø and Gerda III's crew (Skipper Otto Andersen, John Hansen, Gerhardt Steffensen, and Einar Tønnesen), they together ferried approximately 300 Jews to safety.
Although most Danish Jews were in hiding, most would likely have been caught eventually if safe passage to Sweden had not been secured. Sweden had earlier been receiving Norwegian Jews with some sort of Swedish connection. But the actions to save the Norwegians were not entirely effective due to the lack of experience dealing with the German authorities. When martial law was introduced in Denmark on August 29, the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs (UD) realized that the Danish Jews were in immediate danger. In a letter dated August 31, the Swedish ambassador in Copenhagen was given clearance by the Chief Legal Officer Gösta Engzell (who had represented Sweden at the 1938 Évian Conference, held to discuss Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazi regime) to issue Swedish passports to "rescue Danish Jews and bring them here."[3] On October 2, the Swedish government announced in an official statement that Sweden was prepared to accept all Danish Jews in Sweden. It was a message parallel to an earlier unofficial statement made to the German authorities in Norway.[3]
The Jews were smuggled and transported out of Denmark over the Øresund strait from Zealand to Sweden—a passage of varying time depending on the specific route and the weather, but averaging under an hour on the choppy winter sea. Some were transported in large fishing boats of up to 20 tons, but others were carried to freedom in rowboats or kayaks. The ketch Albatros was one of the ships used to smuggle Jews to Sweden. Some refugees were smuggled inside freight rail cars on the regular ferries between Denmark and Sweden, this route being suited for the very young or old who were too weak to endure a rough sea passage. Danish Resistance Movement operatives had broken into empty freight cars sealed by the Germans after inspection, helped refugees onto the cars, and then resealed the cars with forged or stolen German seals to forestall further inspection.
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.[4]
2 October Swedish radio broadcast
The Danish physicist Niels Bohr, whose mother was Jewish, made a determined stand for his fellow countrymen in a personal appeal to the Swedish king and government ministers.[5]King Gustav V granted him an audience after a persuasive call from Greta Garbo, who knew Bohr.[6] He was spirited off to Sweden, whose government arranged immediate transport for him to the United States to work on the then top-secret Manhattan Project. When Bohr arrived on Swedish soil, government representatives told him he had to board an aircraft immediately for the United States. Bohr refused. He told the officials—and eventually the king—that until Sweden announced over its airwaves and through its press that its borders would be open to receive the Danish Jews, he was not going anywhere. Bohr wrote of these events himself.[7] As related by the historian Richard Rhodes,[5] on 30 September Bohr persuaded Gustaf to make public Sweden's willingness to provide asylum, and on 2 October Swedish radio broadcast that Sweden was ready to receive the Jewish refugees. Rhodes and other historians[5] interpret Bohr's actions in Sweden as being a necessary precursor without which mass rescue could not have occurred. According to Paul A. Levine, however—who does not mention the Bohr factor at all—the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs acted on clear instructions given much earlier by Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson and Foreign Minister Christian Günther, following a policy already established in 1942.[8]
Rescues
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).[9] 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.
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. The local Germans in command, for their own political calculations and through their own inactivity, may have actually facilitated the escape.[10][11]
Partial list of Danish rescuers and resisters
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 did not meet the Yad Vashem criteria for the "Righteous Among the 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:[12][13][14][15][16]
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";[18] 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.[19] 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.
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. A bribe of 15,000 kroner was rejected, and the cash was destroyed.
Of 580 Danish Jews who failed to escape to Sweden, 464 were arrested.
They 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.[22]
The Danish Jews were sent ultimately to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in German-occupied Czechoslovakia. 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.
Rescue by Folke Bernadotte
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 rescued by an operation led by Folke Bernadotte of the Swedish Red Cross who organized the transporting of interned Norwegians, Danes and western European inmates from German concentration camps to hospitals in Sweden. Around 15,000 people were taken to safety in the White Buses of the Bernadotte expedition.[23]
Aftermath
About 116 Danish Jews remained hidden in Denmark until the war's end, a few died of accidents or committed suicide, and a handful had special permission to stay.
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 were murdered in the Shoah.[citation needed]
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 legend.
Different explanations have been advanced to explain the success of efforts to protect the Danish Jewish population in the light of less success at similar operations elsewhere in Nazi-occupied Europe:[11][25][26][13]
The German Reich plenipotentiary of Denmark, Werner Best, despite instigating the roundup via a telegram he sent to Hitler on October 8, 1943, did not act to enforce it. He was aware of the efforts by Duckwitz to have the roundup cancelled, and knew about the potential escape of the Jews to Sweden, but he turned a blind eye to it, as did the Wehrmacht (which was guarding the Danish coast), in order to preserve Germany's relationship with Denmark.[27] According to the account of a survivor, Best himself had warned the survivor to escape.[28]
1973 Israel stamp commemorating the rescue
Logistically, the operation was relatively simple. 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 to 10 kilometres (3 to 6mi)). 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.[29]
Denmark's Jewish population had long been thoroughly 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.[30]
Popular culture
Films
The Only Way 1970 film about the escape of Danish Jews to Sweden during World War II
A Day in October 1991 film about the escape of Danish Jews to Sweden during World War II
Miracle at Midnight 1998 American TV movie about the escape of Danish Jews to Sweden during World War II
Across the Waters, 2016 film based on the true story of Niels Børge Lund Ferdinandsen, who rescued the Danish Jews during World War II
Books
A Night of Watching (1967) a work of historical fiction by Elliot Arnold about the escape of Danish Jews to Sweden during World War II.[31]
Number the Stars (1989) a work of historical fiction by Lois Lowry about the escape of Danish Jews to Sweden during World War II.
Harboring Hope: The True Story of How Henny Sinding Helped Denmark’s Jews Escape the Nazis (2023) a work of historical fiction by Susan Hood (Harper Collins).[32]
↑ Christian Tortzen, Gilleleje Oktober 1943, Copenhagen: Fremad, 1970
↑ Paulssen Gunnar S (1995). "The bridge over the Oeresund: The historiography on the expulsion of Jews from Nazi-occupied Denmark". J. Contemp. Hist. 30 (3): 431–464. doi:10.1177/002200949503000304. S2CID162324125.
↑ For an alternative interpretation of Duckwitz's role in the rescue of the Danish Jews, see: Archived 18 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine Vilhjálmsson, Vilhjálmur Ö. "Ich weiss, was ich zu tun habe" RAMBAM 15:2006
The Danish resistance movements were an underground insurgency to resist the German occupation of Denmark during World War II. Due to the initially lenient arrangements, in which the Nazi occupation authority allowed the democratic government to stay in power, the resistance movement was slower to develop effective tactics on a wide scale than in some other countries.
During World War II, some individuals and groups helped Jews and others escape the Holocaust conducted by Nazi Germany.
Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz was a German diplomat. During World War II, he served as an attaché for Nazi Germany in occupied Denmark. He tipped off the Danes about the Germans' intended deportation of the Jewish population in 1943 and arranged for their reception in Sweden. Danish resistance groups subsequently rescued 95% of Denmark's Jewish population. Israel has designated Duckwitz as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.
Righteous Among the Nations is a title used by Yad Vashem to describe people who, for various reasons, made an effort to assist victims, including Jews, who were being exterminated by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. The term originates from the concept of ger toshav, a legal term used to refer to non-Jewish observers of the Seven Laws of Noah.
Yehuda Bauer was a Czech-born Israeli historian and scholar of the Holocaust. He was a professor of Holocaust studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The Kovno Ghetto was a ghetto established by Nazi Germany to hold the Lithuanian Jews of Kaunas (Kovno) during the Holocaust. At its peak, the ghetto held 29,000 people, most of whom were later sent to concentration and extermination camps, or were shot at the Ninth Fort. About 500 Jews escaped from work details and directly from the ghetto, and joined Jewish and Soviet partisan forces in the distant forests of southeast Lithuania and Belarus.
Miracle at Midnight is an American TV movie based on the rescue of the Danish Jews in Denmark during the Holocaust. It is a Disney production and premiered on ABC on May 17, 1998.
Jules-Géraud Saliège was a French Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Toulouse from 1928 until his death, and was a significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism in France. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1946 by Pope Pius XII. For his efforts to protect Jews during the Nazi Holocaust he was recognised as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
In three cases, entire countries resisted the deportation of their Jewish population during the Holocaust. In other countries, notable individuals or communities created resistance during the Holocaust which helped the Jews escape some concentration camps.
Denmark–Israel relations refers to the bilateral relationship between Denmark and Israel.
Tina Strobos was a Dutch physician and psychiatrist from Amsterdam, known for her resistance work during World War II. While a young medical student, she worked with her mother and grandmother to rescue more than 100 Jewish refugees as part of the Dutch resistance during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Strobos provided her house as a hiding place for Jews on the run, using a secret attic compartment and warning bell system to keep them safe from sudden police raids. In addition, Strobos smuggled guns and radios for the resistance and forged passports to help refugees escape the country. Despite being arrested and interrogated nine times by the Gestapo, she never betrayed the whereabouts of a Jew.
The Sosnowiec Ghetto was a World War II ghetto set up by Nazi German authorities for Polish Jews in the Środula district of Sosnowiec in the Province of Upper Silesia. During the Holocaust in occupied Poland, most inmates, estimated at over 35,000 Jewish men, women and children were deported to Auschwitz death camp aboard Holocaust trains following roundups lasting from June until August 1943. The ghetto was liquidated during an uprising, a final act of defiance of its Underground Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) made up of youth. Most of the Jewish fighters perished.
The Holocaust in Belgium was the systematic dispossession, deportation, and murder of Jews and Roma in German-occupied Belgium during World War II. Out of about 66,000 Jews in the country in May 1940, around 28,000 were murdered during the Holocaust.
During the Holocaust, the Catholic Church played a role in rescuing hundreds of thousands of Jews from persecution by Nazi Germany. Members of the Church, through lobbying of Axis officials, providing false documents, and the hiding of people in monasteries, convents, schools, among families and the institutions of the Vatican itself, saved hundreds of thousands of Jews. Israeli diplomat and historian Pinchas Lapide estimated the number saved to be between 700,000 and 860,000, although this figure is contested.
Jeanne Daman (1918–1986) is one of the Righteous Among the Nations.
Helmut Kleinicke was a German engineer who supervised construction projects near Auschwitz concentration camp and saved Jews during the Holocaust. Kleinicke was named Righteous Among the Nations in 2018; he is one of the few Nazi Party members to be given this award, along with Oskar Schindler, Hans Walz, Karl Plagge and Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz.
Maria Schauer was an Austrian recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations, after rescuing three Jews from deportation and possible death after Nazi occupation of Austria during World War II.
Fanny Arnskov was a Danish woman who helped Jews escape deportation by Nazis during World War II (1939–1945). She was a leader of the Women's League for Peace and Freedom.
References
Bak, Sofie Lene: Nothing to Speak Of: Wartime Experiences of the Danish Jews. U. of Chicago (Museum Tuscalum Press) 2010, ISBN978 87 635 3958 6.
Bertelsen, Aage. October '43. New York: Putnam, 1954.
Buckser, Andrew. "Rescue and Cultural Context During the Holocaust: Grundtvigian Nationalism and the Rescue of the Danish Jews". Shofar 19(2), 2001. JSTOR42943190.
Pundik, Herbert (1998). In Denmark It Could Not Happen: The Flight of the Jews to Sweden in 1943. Hewlett, NY: Gefen.
Stræde, Therkel (1993). October 1943: The Rescue of the Danish Jews From Annihilation. with H. Rovsing Olsen. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Museum of Danish Resistance 1940–1945.
Vilhjálmsson, Vilhjálmur Örn (2006) "Ich weiss, was ich zu tun habe". Rambam 15:2006 (English abstract at the end of the article).
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