Anne Sheppes was born in Denmark in 1934. Her family had been there since the 18th century and was totally integrated in Danish life. The children attended Danish schools and at home they spoke Danish. They celebrated all the national holidays, but they also celebrated Jewish holidays. In addition to their normal schooling, they had a special teacher come to the house to teach her and her four other siblings Hebrew and about Judaism, and Jewish practices.
In 1939, when World War II broke out, she was five years old. She was next to the youngest in the family of five children. Her father was an attorney and worked for the Danish Foreign Office as a specialist in international law. As he was active in politics, he was very aware of what might be the implication of the German invasion of Denmark on April 9, 1940 for Danish Jews.
“Yet,” said she, “we didn’t have to wear special badges, like the rest of the Jews in occupied Europe, nor did we have to live in special, walled parts of the city. Everything was normal.” The Germans were “just there.” In fact, the Danes laughed at the Germans, who had always had the reputation of being far less relaxed than the Danish people. Children would exaggerate their way of marching as the Army patrols moved about the city. “Although we were aware that there was a war on, everyone, including the Jewish community, lived perfectly normal lives. I went to school, as did all the other Danish children, Jewish or Christian.”
“Some Danes engaged in sabotage, but for the rest of us, things went along as usual.” Denmark had been supplying a large share of the agricultural products needed by the German army in the rest of occupied Europe, “so we thought we would be safe.”
But, Mrs. Sheppes went on to tell me, in September 1943 the Germans brought two large ships to Denmark to deport all 7500 Danish Jews to German concentration camps. Hitler had decided that the Jewish minority in Demark could no longer be an exception to his mania of making Europe judenrien. But a German named Duckwitz, who had spent many years in pre-war Denmark, and was now in charge of all shipping there for the Third Reich, had warned his Danish friends who, in turn, warned their Jewish compatriots of what was about to happen.
The Jews of Copenhagen were warned by the Chief Rabbi of Copenhagen. The next day was the first day of Rosh Hashanah, but Rabbi Melchior told them and that there would be no services and that they must go into hiding immediately. “But we did not live in Copenhagen then, we lived in the country, about 50 miles away.”
“My father’s close friend, the Consulate General from Chile, came to warn us,” she told me. The Consul came back after Rosh Hashanah and when he found us still there, he became very upset. “You must leave,” he insisted, “there are no more Jews in Denmark, they have all either gone under ground, or have already left for Sweden.”
Anne related how the family then moved out of their house and spent one night in a hotel. Then they all went to a farm owned by the father of one of their maids, but he was afraid to keep them there, so the family moved on to several other hotels and finally to the house of a woman who was involved with the underground, who kept them hidden.
“Finally, after eight days, my father found a fishing boat to take us to Sweden,” she went on. “We had to cram into the hold. After a while the captain said we could come up, we were in international waters. During the war we had been required to follow the rules of the blackout. We had not seen lights at night in Denmark for many years. In Sweden this was not necessary, and we could already see the lights of Sweden from the water. Finally, we saw this large, well-lit Swedish patrol boat cruising about the Sound. These boats were there for the purpose of picking up refugees like us. We all got on the patrol boat and the captain said ‘welcome to Sweden’.”
She told me that although it wasn’t necessary to pay, if you didn’t have the money, but her father paid the fisherman who had taken them across. They landed in Helsingbord, Sweden. Anne was still wearing the four dresses she had put on before getting on the boat to go to Sweden. Her family didn’t know where they would land, or what would be available for them; so they prepared, without being burdened with large valises.
Anne’s grandmother was originally from Germany. She opted not to go to Sweden with the rest of the family. “I’m an old woman, what do they want with me?” she said. She was picked up by the Gestapo and sent to Theresienstadt, a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia with 500 other Danish Jews. Theresienstadt was the camp the Nazis always showed the Red Cross for inspection. But even there, most amenities were a sham, and a little more food was given only if there was to be an international inspection. The Danes fared better than most because their government and the Danish people kept sending food packages and maintained pressure on the Red Cross to assure that it was distributed to their countrymen.
Early in 1945, Sweden’s Count Folke Bernadotte arranged with the Nazi authorities, who saw the end of the war coming and wanted to seem a bit more benevolent, to have all Scandinavian prisoners transferred to Sweden in his now-famous convoy of “white buses” that wound its way through northern Europe on its mission of mercy. Anne’s grandmother had survived Theresienstadt and came back on one of these buses.
In Sweden, Anne went to school and found the children “very sweet.” Her father lectured at the university. The Swedish government “lent” the Danish refugees money to live on, which made things a bit more bearable. They had remained as a family and were joined by her grandmother when Bernadotte’s “white buses” arrived.
In May 1945 the whole family went back home to Holmstead in Denmark. They found their house still in good shape, although a bit overgrown. Integration of the Jewish refugees after the war was very normal and natural. The Danish population had prevented the Holocaust from reaching Denmark by helping almost all the Jews escape to Sweden.
The Danish people had helped the refugees escape because “this was the only right thing to do.” The Danes helped the Jews because they considered them just like any other Danish citizens and, by this stage of the war, their hatred of the Germans had become so great that most jumped at the chance not only to help their fellow Danes, but also took great relish in foiling Germany’s plans.
After the war, Anne’s younger sister went to Israel and Anne eventually came to America. She is still very committed to Judaism, and was not shaken at all by her childhood experiences during the war.