Rescue of The Danish Jews - The Deportation Order and Rescue

The Deportation Order and Rescue

Without the recalcitrant Danish government to impede them, Denmark's German occupiers began planning the deportation to Nazi concentration camps of the 8,000 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 they would accept the Danish Jews only if approved by the Nazis, who ignored the request for approval. On September 28, 1943, he 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. (The official chief rabbi, Dr. Max Friediger, had already been detained as a "hostage" on the night of August 29, 1943, along with some 100 prominent Danes, including a dozen Jews, in a camp near Copenhagen.) At the early morning services, on September 29, the day prior to the Rosh Hashanah services, Jews were promptly warned by Rabbi Melchior of the German action and urged to go into hiding immediately and to spread the word to all their Jewish friends and relatives.

The early phases of the rescue were improvisational. 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 phoned 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.

Although the majority of the Danish Jews were in hiding, they would eventually have been caught if safe passage to Sweden could not be secured. Sweden had earlier turned away the Norwegian Jews to their certain deaths and they were determined to do the same to the Danish Jews. Fortunately, Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist, made a determined stand for his fellow countrymen. He was spirited off to Sweden, whose government was under strict orders to get him to the United States without delay to work on the then top-secret Manhattan Project. When Bohr reached the shores of Sweden they told him he had to board a plane immediately for the United States. Bohr refused. He told the Swedish officials, and eventually the king, that until they announced over their air waves and through their press that their borders would be open to receive the Danish Jews, he wasn't going anywhere. Bohr wrote of these events himself. As related by the historian Richard Rhodes, on 30 September 1943 Bohr persuaded King Gustaf of Sweden to make public Sweden’s willingness to provide asylum, and on 2 October 1943 Swedish radio broadcast that Sweden was ready to offer asylum. Historians Richard Rhodes and others interpret Bohr’s actions in Sweden as being a necessary precursor without which that mass rescue could not have occurred. Whether or not the mass rescue of the Danish Jews could have happened without Bohr’s political activity in Sweden, there is no doubt that he did all that he could for his countrymen.

The Jews were smuggled 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, as noted by Preben Munch-Nielsen in an interview with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 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 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. The underground 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.

Some of the fishermen assisting in the rescue charged money to transport Jews to Sweden, while others took payments only from those who could afford passage. The Danish underground took an active role in organizing the rescue and providing financing, mostly from wealthy Danes who donated large sums of money to the endeavour.

During the first days of the rescue action, Jews moved into the many fishing harbours on the Danish coast for rescue, but the Gestapo became suspicious of activity around harbours (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). 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, others were lost at sea when vessels of poor seaworthiness capsized, and still others were intercepted at sea by German patrol boats. Danish harbour 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 they proved less than enthusiastic in the operation and frequently turned a blind eye to escapees.