A National Effort
In class on Tuesday we briefly touched on some of the amazing ways Jews managed to escape the Nazis. Denmark did an fascinating job of organizing a movement which allowed almost all of Danish Jews to survive. Once we discussed this in class I was curious on how Denmark pulled off this large-scale operation. How did they manage to get so many Jews out of Denmark so quickly? How did they even know it was time to get them out?
To understand the answer to these questions it’s important to know what was happening to Denmark during the time. According to Spielvogel the “Danish government was allowed to keep control of the government and public institutions in return for its cooperation with German military and civil officials,” but in 1943 “the Nazis eliminated the Danish government and took direct control” (1). Therefore, the Jews needed to leave Denmark for their own safety.
On September 28, 1943 a “German diplomat, secretly informed the Danish resistance that the Nazis were planning to deport the Danish Jews” (2). In response the Danes began organizing a national movement to get the Jews out of Denmark. In order to get the Jews to neutral Sweden “fishermen helped ferry some 7,200 Danish Jews and 680 non-Jewish family members to safety across the narrow body of water separating Denmark from Sweden.” The photo, displayed here, shows one of the boats the Jewish were put on. It’s important to point out that not all Jews made it, as “almost 500 Danish Jews were deported” (2). Despite this, Denmark managed to save thousands of people and become “the only occupied country that actively resisted the Nazi regime’s attempts to deport its Jewish citizens” (2).
- Jackson J. Spielvogel and David Redles, Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History Seventh Edition (New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2014), 222
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Rescue in Denmark,” November 4, 2015, http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007740, paragraph 3
I thought this was really interesting as well when we talked about it in class. In some ways it seems so simple, this way of saving thousands of lives to put Jewish people on boats and get them to a neutral country. Yet it was the only occupied country that really resisted the Nazi regime to deport the Jewish citizens, you would think that with how many people were nationalists at this time it would be more common for them to want to save the people of their country. Out of the thousands of Jews who lived in Denmark only about 500 were deported, that’s insane to think about. Just think about how many lives could’ve been saved had other coutnries been willing to help their Jewish citizens in the same way Denmark was.
I think that Denmark did an excellent job in saving its citizens. on the eve of its collapse, the Government completed its duty to protect the people from harm. This is a great case of heroism during world war 2. This should be more well known in the world. If other countries would have followed Denmark’s example the world would be a lot different. But there are three major things that should be noted. First, the government was warned in advance which gave them time to help save their people. Second, there is a small distance from Denmark to Sweden. Third, there were only 7,500 Jews in Denmark. some countries like Germany had over 700,000 Jews and it would have been much harder to save so many people in other countries.