How Denmark’s Jews were rescued
When Hitler issued an order on September 25, 1943, to round up Jews, the Danish people responded with a successful effort to save them
75 YEARS ago, Hitler sent a message to his representative in Copenhagen instructing him to rid Denmark of its 8,000-strong Jewish community.
“The Jewish Campaign” was scheduled to begin on Rosh Hashanah 5704 — 1 October 1943. Danish Jews would be rounded up, incarcerated and “deported to the East”.
Danish resistance to the German occupation had increased dramatically during the summer of 1943 as Danes perceived that the tide of war was turning.
At the end of August, the Germans seized control from the civilian government and set the country on a new course — one that could have proved lethal for its Jewish community.
Since the Nazi invasion in April 1940, Denmark been regarded by Berlin as a model protectorate, inhabited by a fellow Germanic people. Indeed the German minority in Denmark, local national socialists and strongly anti-Communist nationalists had provided 12,000 volunteers — half were accepted — to form a Danish Legion to fight the Red Army on the eastern front, alongside Hitler’s forces.
The Danish social democratic government had meandered between appeasement of Nazi demands and refusal to obey them in order to safeguard its population. It refused
Werner Best to hand over the Jewish community, but it also broke off diplomatic relations with Britain and its allies. What were the limits of collaboration? Werner Best, Hitler’s man in Copenhagen, was uneasy about the order to eliminate Denmark’s Jews. A by Danish society to save its Jews — it was a mark of Danish honour to do so. Universities, the Supreme Court and even King Frederick participated in a mass protest. On 3 October, a