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ABSTRACT
The article examines the special circumstances that led Nazi Germany to treat the Jews in Denmark differently than in other occupied countries and, in so doing, facilitate their rescue in October 1943. The newly discovered documents brought forward in this article not only strengthen the assumption that the Germans turned a blind eye to the escape of Danish Jewry to Sweden, but also greatly contribute to understanding the reasons behind the German preference of mandatory escape of the Jews, over their deportation. Indeed, the success of the rescue was a corollary of the cooperative relationship between Denmark and Nazi Germany.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Dr. Orna Keren-Carmel graduated her BA in Law and in General History (Magna Cum Laude) at Tel Aviv University, her MA in European Studies at Aarhus University (DK), and her Ph.D at the department of Jewish Studies at Tel Aviv University. In 2016, her doctoral dissertation “The Rescue of Danish Jewry in Israeli Historiography and Culture of Memory (1943-2013)” was approved. During the academic year 2017/2018, she is conducting post-doc research at the Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg (DE), dealing with the relationship between Scandinavia and Israel after the Holocaust and during the 1950s.
Notes
1. See, for example, Rozett, “Hatzala bikne mida gadol bashoa” [Large-scale rescues during the Holocaust], 4–6.
2. Til Landets Bedste (1966) by Danish historian Jørgen Hæstrup, and The Rescue of Danish Jewry: Test of a Democracy (first published in Hebrew in 1966) by Israeli historian Leni Yahil.
3. See, among others, the works of Tatiana Brustin-Berenstein, Gunnar S. Paulsson, Ulrich Herbert, and Philip Giltner, which will be further elaborated throughout this article.
4. Keren-Carmel, “The Rescue of Danish Jewry”.
5. Yahil, The Rescue of Danish Jewry, 268.
6. Bak, Nothing to Speak of, 41.
7. British National Archives (Surrey), registry no.: N 849/87/42, 1.
8. British National Archives (Surrey), weekly political intelligence Summary no. 210 of 13 October 1943, 7.
9. Yahil, The Rescue of Danish Jewry, 195.
10. Brustin-Berenstein, “The Historiographic Treatment,” 190.
11. Paulsson, “The ‘Bridge over the Øresund’,” 440–441.
12. Lidegaard, Countrymen, 50.
13. British National Archives, registry no.: N 5935/87/42, 1–2.
14. Kirchhoff, “Hvorfor udløste dr. Best,” 69–72.
15. Herbert, “Die deutsche Besatzungspolitik,” 94.
16. Paulsson, “The ‘Bridge over the Øresund’,” 441.
17. Brustin-Berenstein, “The Historiographic Treatment,” 192.
18. Yahil, The Rescue of Danish Jewry, 188.
19. Kirchhoff, “Denmark,” 469.
20. Yahil, “Yehudei Denia betheresienstadt,” 87.
21. For further, interesting elaboration on this subject see the book Der Nordische Gedanke in Deutschland 1920–1940 by Hans-Jürgen Lutzhöft (1971).
22. See the groundbreaking research on this subject by Smith, Poulsen, and Christensen, “The Danish Volunteers in the Waffen SS and German Warfare at the Eastern Front” (1999). Another, more recent, book by Larsen and Stræde, En skole i vold.
23. Giltner, In the Friendliest Manner, 9.
24. Herbert, Best, 346.
25. Braham, “Baalot brita shel Germania vehashoa,” 1.
26. Ibid.
27. Figures were taken from the Yad Vashem official website (6 April 2015). http://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/about/fate-of-jews/western-europe.
28. Taken from the lexicon entry “Norway”, the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Yad Vashem, Robert Rozett and Shmuel Spector. http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205966.pdf.