Nearly five decades have passed since the infamous Holocaust- the premeditated, systematic genocide of six million Jewish men, women and children. The memory of that nightmare still lingers on in the wounded hearts of living survivors as well as through Holocaust memorials and museums across the globe.
I lived in occupied Europe during the Holocaust. However, my story is not about human depravity at its best. I was among the fortunate ones rescued by faring fellow countrymen who did not allow religious differences to stand in the way of humanitarianism; who did not allow a heavily armed war machine to intimidate them into standing idly by while the lives of other humans hung in the balance. Such isolated instances of noble heroism took place throughout Europe, even in Germany itself. These courageous people deserve as important a place in Holocaust remembrance as the unspeakable barbarism they dared to defy at the risk of their own lives.
But my story is not about an isolated incident of the rescue of a few Jewish families by a handful of neighbors. It is about the mass rescue of almost an entire Jewish population by nearly the entire citizenry of a tiny kingdom situated on the German Border. It is a story about ordinary folk risking their lives to rescue total strangers; a story about an elderly, ailing king who inspired a sense of courage that proved more potent than arms, shattering the morale of the occupying forces. It is the story of Denmark’s rescue of its Jewry, by one who owes her life to that monumental historic episode.
In 1933, Hitler rose to power. A solemn mood fell over Danish Jewry that year, and many of us wondered fearfully about the future. It was also the year the main synagogue in Copenhagen was to celebrate its 10th anniversary, but more eventful for us was the glimpse that we got then of the kind of king we had. The president of the synagogue and a few other dignitaries arranged for an audience with King Christian X, in order to invite His Majesty personally to the commemoration. But they were not attuned to the sensitive political risks involved and expressed this to the king: “We understand that under these circumstances which we now have with our neighboring country (Germany) that His Majesty may not be able to attend our function.” The king, however, replied: “Why? Nothing has changed.” and participated openly at the ceremonial. This bold demonstration gave encouragement to the Jews of both Denmark and Germany.
When the German army occupied Denmark in April 1940, we assumed that the end had surely come to our ideal, tranquil situation. But again the king reassured us and the entire Danish population that we had nothing to fear, for he was still our king. He gave us enormous strength and hope in more ways than mere verbal encouragement. Daily, he would ride his horse through the streets of occupied Copenhagen, unescorted, as if to say: “I am not afraid of these unwelcome intruders.” In response, we would throw letters and bouquets of flowers to him, assuring him that we believed in him and trusted him.
The first three years of German occupation went by without incident. We experienced no restrictions by the Germans other than the normal wartime restraints such as curfew and blackouts. But with the passing of time, the Danes grew increasingly restless and uneasy about the occupation and began to openly demonstrate their disdain for German presence on their soil. During blackouts, for example, some people would ignite huge bonfires in the vicinity of German military sites, exposing them to the British bombers overhead. Many times the scheme succeeded in directing British fighter planes to German targets, and numerous enemy installations were thus destroyed. At one point, they even hit the main headquarters of the occupying force, destroying it completely. And the Danes would always celebrate such happenings publicly and defiantly.
Naturally, the Germans were infuriated by the sabotage and tried in vain to instill fear into the Danish populace by parading up and down the main streets of Copenhagen, displaying their mighty tanks and arsenals of sophisticated weaponry. To the Germans’ dismay, however, the citizenry would simply do an almost spontaneous about-face, leaving the invading army without an audience. Day by day, the Dane in the street grew more and more brazen. If a group of German soldiers asked a Dane for directions, the instructions they received led then in the opposite direction. When we waited for the bus and spotted one or more German soldiers seated at the bus stop as well, there was sort of a silent, unanimous agreement by all to let the bus pass by without stopping. And, at times, when a German soldier did manage to board the bus, the other passenger would simply rise and disembark. Such, and many other similar actions by the general population, served to demoralize the occupying soldiers and weakened their control significantly.
Three years of this kind of harassment by the Danes was about as much as the Germans would stand for. Berlin was furious that not only were the Danes unafraid of the Germans but they dared to openly display their disgust toward them. Consequently, the Reich decided to intensify its grip over the tiny kingdom and to be stricter with the Danes. First, they instituted the standard requirement that all Jews don the infamous Yellow Star. When King Christian received the order, his response was: “If my Jews have to wear a Yellow Star, I will be the first to put one on.” Needless to say, the decree was rescinded; it would have been of no use. The king would have worn it, too, and subsequently the entire population would have followed his example. And when Hitler questioned the king concerning the possibility of change in the traditional Danish policy towards the Jews, the king answered proudly, “We have no Jewish problem in Denmark. We have only Danes.”
However, the atmosphere of relative security which the king created for his Jewish subjects was short-lived. The Germans were not going to accept any further intimidation and so dealt the Danes the most dreaded blow by imprisoning the king in his own castle. The public symbol of hope and courage was now visibly absent to the people who had looked forward to seeing him almost daily. The towering king would no longer ride tall among his people.
It was during this period that I got married – on August 22, 1943. Although the wedding was nice, it was of course dimmed by the inescapable knowledge of the fate of our brothers and sisters across Europe, and the fear that it could happen to us as well. We also feared for the safety of our king. The frequent blackouts and early-hour curfews continued as grim reminders that we were still under German occupation.
During the week following our wedding, the situation grew worse, and the traditional seven-day marriage celebration became all the more difficult, for on August 28, 1943, the Germans declared martial law. First, they arrested the rabbi of the main synagogue, Rabbi Dr. Marcus Friediege, and shipped him off to Theresienstadt Concentration Camp. A few days later, other leaders of the Jewish community were taken away as well. And it wasn’t long thereafter before the dreaded inevitable reared its ugly head.
A few weeks before Rosh Hashanah, the rumors began to circulate. The Germans were planning the roundup and deportation of Danish Jewry. Although they were only rumors, we had already witnessed the arrests of our community leaders and were not going to wait around to verify them. My mother advised us to phone the woman from whom we had rented a cottage in the countryside during the summer, a Mrs. Larsen. Perhaps she would allow us to come out there to hide.
When I phoned Mrs. Larsen, I was astonished at the unexpected tone of greeting I received. She seemed overjoyed to hear from us and spoke with great excitement, inviting us all to come out to the country immediately, that she missed us and hoped I would bring along the entire family. I could hardly get a word in edgewise before she hung up, and naturally I was puzzled when I put down the phone. But there was no time for psychoanalyzing. We picked up and left – my husband, my mother and my mother-in-law. We took only our personal papers along and nothing else, assuming we would only be gone for a few days at the most. When we arrived at the Larsen’s place, they received us with open arms. They knew more about what was going on than we did. They had been informed by a neighbor who worked in the higher government administration building. “You will all stay here,” they insisted, “and will not worry, for no one is going to take you from our house.”
It was then that we began to confront the crude reality of the situation and just looked at the Larsen’s in shock. Their radio’ was broadcasting German warnings against harboring or aiding Jews at the risk of being shot on the spot, and yet thousands of Larsen’s across Denmark were doing just that.
We stayed with them for a few days until a neighbor came by and informed Mrs. Larsen about a suspicious-looking individual loitering across the road. The neighbor suggested that perhaps it would be advisable for us to hide on her property. We agreed, and at nightfall we scurried through the garden and hid in a garden house built completely of glass, covered from floor to ceiling with a wide variety of plants. The neighbor’s suspicions were verified that night when we saw the searchlights sweeping back and forth throughout the neighborhood. It was quite scary, but we remained calm and prayed. As dawn approached and the sun appeared, we felt a bit better and waited, hoping that somehow we could escape to Sweden.
Not too long afterward, in early October, our salvation appeared as if out of nowhere. He was a young medical doctor by the name of Nielsen. He told us he would return for us that same evening at 7:30 P.M. to take us to a boat destined for the safe shores of neutral Sweden. At 7:30 P.M. on the dot, Dr. Nielsen was there. He told us to walk very casually and calmly down to a waiting taxi. The driver was also a member of the Underground and drove us through Copenhagen, which was then saturated with Nazi storm troopers. There was no time for sentimental thoughts, and we tried not to think about whether we would ever return to our wonderful Copenhagen.
Finally, we reached our destination, an island named Amager, where the Danish airport is now located. Dr. Nielsen led us down into a shelter and told us to wait for his return and not to talk or make any unnecessary sounds. He soon rejoined us, explaining that he had to make certain no one was around because we were about to cross a railroad. We then followed him to a bakery and were settled in an attic atop a store. Again he left us and again we had to wait. When he returned, he appeared pale and worried. The Germans were conducting a thorough search for Jews in the neighboring houses, and we would have to remain in the attic overnight. The search ended quickly; a number of Jews had been rounded up after they were discovered hiding in a nearby church.
Somehow we eluded the search and when Dr. Nielsen returned he led us to a waiting taxi once more. Its was too dangerous to go over to Sweden from the particular area, he informed us. We ended up being driven through the occupied streets of Copenhagen again, this time in the direction of the northern beaches. We finally arrived at the beach and were told to go into a small fishing boat. There were several other Jews on board besides my family, about nine refugees altogether. My husband and I were lying down on the deck of the boat and the rest were on the floor of the cabin. The boat captain, a Danish fisherman who belonged to the Underground, covered us with fishing nets. When everyone had been properly concealed, the fisherman started the boat, and as the motor started to run, so did my pent up tears. The captain, however, began to sing and whistle nonchalantly, which puzzled us, but not for long. Soon we heard him shouting in German toward a passing Nazi patrol boat: “Wollen Sie einen beer haben?” (Would you like to have a beer?”)-a clever gimmick designed to avoid suspicion by the Germans.
After three tense hours at sea, we heard shouting: “Get up! Get up! And welcome to Sweden!” It was hard to believe, but we were now safe. We cried and the Swedes cried with us as they escorted us ashore. They provided us with medical examinations, shelter, food, whatever we needed. We soon joined hundreds of other Danish Jews, and together we observed the High Holy Day of Yom Kippur, fasting an entire day while praying that the fate of all other persecuted victims end up as happily as ours. Our gratitude to God, to the Danes, to the Swedes, knew no bounds. The nightmare was over.
But Denmark’s rescue of its Jewry did not end at the shores of Sweden. When we arrived, the Danish embassy in Sweden provided us with financial assistance, enabling us to settle into an apartment and find employment. In addition, a Danish refugee camp was set up in scenic mountainous surroundings, even providing for the special religious needs of those of us who were Orthodox. My husband and I decided to relocate to the camp when I became pregnant with our first child. Unlike other refugee camps one reads about, this one was virtually a resort, and we were accommodated quite comfortably throughout our stay. Whatever we needed was provided, be it food, laundry, medical attention, anything. They assigned us an Orthodox cook, Mrs. Jenny Apelt, so that we could observe our kosher dietary needs. A synagogue, too, was set up for us, as were classes on all kinds of Judaic subjects, some of them taught by my husband, who is a rabbi.
While the Swedes did everything in their power to make us comfortable, we were greatly pained by the knowledge that other Jews had not been as fortunate as we, and we prayed for them daily. Nonetheless, the few hundred Danish Jews who were not so lucky were still cared for by the Danes even during their imprisonment. The Danish government continuously sent them Red Cross supplies, loaded with vitamins, medicines, clothes and food. How much of it they actually received, I do not know, but some of it did filter into the camps and enabled many of them to survive physically and emotionally. Just knowing that they had not been abandoned by their homeland served as a tremendous boost to their morale and contributed toward their survival.
Moreover, during their incarceration in the camps, the Danish government had made certain that their apartments and belongings were preserved and waiting for their hoped-for return. The government had even paid their rents during their two-year absence. When these unfortunate ones finally returned to Denmark, they found everything intact. Nothing had been touched, nothing had been taken. Some even found fresh flowers in their vases. Anyone can well imagine what that means to these victims of Hitler’s horror.
But most of the Danes who were captured and sent to the camps were not Jews and included a substantial number of policemen, deported to the camps for their role in the historic rescue. Many were tortured by the SS for refusing to reveal the whereabouts of Jews in hiding or for withholding information on rescue plans.
We were returned to Denmark on May 26, 1945, three weeks after the war in Europe had ended. As our boat approached the pier of our beloved Copenhagen, we noticed hundreds of Danes gathered with placards and banners welcoming us home. They greeted us with flowers, balloons and flags. At first, we assumed it was for the king and queen but then we were informed that it was for us, news that brought tears to our eyes. We had never doubted that the Danes were concerned for us, but this sort of welcome caught us quite by surprise. To this day, the memory of that touching moment brings tears to my eyes.
As we returned to our neighborhood, our neighbors welcomed us as if we were heroes. But they were the real heroes, those ordinary folk who had risked everything to save us and who now, too, opened their homes to us until we could find an apartment for ourselves. Having just gotten married before the rescue, we had not had a chance to establish a home for ourselves.
There were approximately 7,000 Jews living in Denmark in 1940; about 95 percent escaped to Sweden. Some 500 were captured by the Nazis and all of them returned but for several elderly folks who died natural deaths in Theresienstadt. The king, though seriously ill during his imprisonment in the castle, lived long enough to see his country free again, and to see his “dear Jewish citizens” return home safely.
Why the Danes acted as they did remains a mystery to historians and psychologists to this day. But to the Danes, the explanation is simple: “We were just helping our next door neighbors who have the same right to live here as we do. You would certainly have done the same.”
The Danish national anthem begins with. “There is a lovely land…” During October 1943, 7,000 Danish Jews became living testimonials to that claim, as did thousands more of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren during the decades that followed.