At the Jewish Museum in Copenhagen, I’m on a wooden rowboat, virtual reality goggles on my eyes, and suddenly I’m rowing with Joseph, a Danish Jew who’s rowing with memories of escape and feelings of grief and loss. I rode on. For the first time, I felt the trauma my family must have felt while running. International Holocaust Remembrance Day is just around the corner. On January 27, we remember the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and the millions of other victims of Nazism.
When we remember the Holocaust, we see light in the darkness. Many people stood up to save the Jews. And then there was Denmark. In 1943, the country rallied to save the entire Jewish community from an anticipated Nazi roundup. Historians call this the only example of effective nationwide resistance to the Nazis during the Holocaust.
This story is personal to me.
My uncle Max Friedman and his wife Anna Barbara were stateless refugees when they arrived in Denmark in the 1930s, fleeing Nazi Germany. In 1943, they were saved again after the German army planned a roundup. At that time, a German naval attaché leaked information about Hitler’s plans, and the news spread quickly. At a Jewish New Year service in the Great Synagogue, Rabbi Markus Melchior (grandfather of the current rabbi) told his followers to go home, pack their things, and find a place to hide.
Danes from all walks of life rose up. Within hours, Jews hid in churches and hospitals with friends, neighbors, and members of the resistance. There was almost no one at home when the German police came knocking. Over the next few weeks, 95 percent of Denmark’s Jews, including my relatives, were transported to Sweden in small boats over choppy seas under cover of darkness.
The Swedes, whose neutrality was guaranteed because Germany wanted iron ore, cared for refugees during the war. All 7,200 survived and, like my uncle and aunt, returned to Denmark after Germany’s surrender in May 1945, finding their homes and property protected on their behalf. . Unlike the Polish Jews who survived the concentration camps and whose neighbors were protected. their property was confiscated.
The Danish case is “a remarkable story in the dark history of the Holocaust,” wrote Janus Moller Jensen, director of the country’s Jewish Museum. “It shines like a bright light, reminding us how important and relevant courage and personal choice are today.”
Recently, the country held a nationwide event to commemorate the rescue. As a descendant of survivors, I traveled to Copenhagen in late September to visit their graves, attend memorial services, and praise the courage of the Danes.
Copenhagen was crowded with commemorative events.
In addition to the Jewish Museum’s virtual reality exhibit, the gift shop also had a number of new rescue books for children as well as adults, including a new book from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. October 1943, by Dr. Terkel Strede, the country’s most authoritative historian of the time. Other commemorative events include a traveling exhibition on his 400-year history of Jewish life in Denmark, which will tour Denmark’s towns and cities over the next two years. Director Jensen told me that the goal was to “inform about the Jewish community and minorities as an integral part of Danish society,” rather than as “the other.”
The author will place a stone on a relative’s gravestone in Copenhagen in September. Photo courtesy of the author.
Why was it necessary? In over 400 years of Jewish life, Denmark has always protected Jews, and that hasn’t changed. On October 7, the government quickly condemned the massacre by Hamas in southern Israel.
The following week, then-Queen Margrethe (now abdicated), Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, and Foreign Minister Lars Lökke Rasmussen attended Shabbat services at the city’s Great Synagogue to show their support for Denmark’s Jews after the Hamas attack. showed that. In November, in commemoration of Kristallnacht (when the Germans fired Jewish businesses and terrorized the Jewish people in 1938), Denmark’s Chief Rabbi Jair Melchior and Prime Minister Frederiksen began the ceremony at the synagogue. , led a torchlight procession that ended at Parliament, the seat of the Danish government.
The next day, the chief rabbi was spat on in the Copenhagen subway. He then publicly called on the perpetrators to meet and discuss the matter. Normally I would say that’s outrageous, but it shows how safe the rabbis feel in Copenhagen despite the massive pro-Palestinian protests against the Israeli-Hamas war.
In recent years, the Jewish community has faced a rise in anti-Semitism.
Denmark’s population includes approximately 200,000 Muslim immigrants. Danish officials say they and left-wing Danes who oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank are stirring up anti-Semitism. In 2015, an Arab gunman attacked the Great Synagogue and killed a young security guard. Historian Dr. Strade said, “Jews who were worried about anti-Semitism before October 7 are now even more worried about it,” adding that in very polite Denmark, verbal abuses that offend Jews are He said there was a collision.
Two years ago, the country passed an anti-Semitism action plan, making Danish police and soldiers protect all Jewish institutions in the country. And it’s strict. I arrived at the Great Synagogue on the eve of Yom Kippur and was berated heavily by a soldier who wanted to know why I had come to the synagogue and where I usually prayed. When I was finally allowed inside, I walked through his two iron gates. The first gate clattered shut behind me, and the second gate opened. Additionally, the road is closed to vehicles.
Security is just one element of the plan. Danish schools now have to teach about the Holocaust and the 1943 rescue. In collaboration with Israel’s Ghetto Fighters Museum, Israel has created a new interactive Holocaust curriculum for high school students. At teacher’s college, future teachers learn how to teach new curricula.
Max Friedmann (right) and his nephew Marcel Friedmann, Copenhagen, 1948. Marcel he managed to reach the United States in 1940. This was his first reunion in over 10 years. Photo courtesy of the author.
Officials say keeping the Danish rescue story alive through education, rather than regulating online speech, is key to combating anti-Semitism. Officials believe that teaching Danes about the choices they have made in the past will help young people today make informed choices when needed.
But historians and experts are having a public debate about what that history actually is. Jensen, director of the Jewish Museum, is pushing for an increased focus on the darker side of Denmark’s story, such as the 7,000 Danes who joined the Waffen-SS and fought on the German army’s eastern front. “They tended to be seen as outcasts and not very bright people,” Jensen says. “But they were just regular people with different beliefs.”
“The majority of Danish society has chosen to help Jews,” he emphasizes. “Focusing on the shadows emphasizes the light.” And the resisters of Nazi-occupied Denmark were a bright light that was often overlooked.
A huge monument to the resistor now stands on the outskirts of Copenhagen, on the very spot where the Germans tied it to a pole and shot it. I was in awe of the hundreds of tombstones that lined the area, commemorating resisters whose bodies were never found. Many were in their 20s or early 30s, just beginning their adult lives. Danish children are also learning about resistors.
A fundamental disagreement among Danish historians these days is whether the country will take courageous steps in protecting its minorities in the future. Historian Bent Bradnikov, whose father was saved in 1943, said: “The world has changed. Moral strength is not valued.”
Historian Terkel Strade and others argue that if Jews faced persecution, the country would save them, but probably not its resident Muslims. [Muslims] It’s seen as too foreign, he says. “I believe there are people willing to help, especially in Denmark,” counters Jensen. “But we can’t lean back and say it’s going to happen. It’s up to us.”
On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, in the midst of dark times, the moral strength that Danes showed 80 years ago and their continued commitment to standing up for the persecuted gives me hope. I’ll give it to you.
Image above: Jewish brothers in a rowboat during their escape to Sweden in October 1943. Photographed after arriving in Sweden. Also on the boat were their aunt and a Danish fisherman. Shortly before arriving in Sweden, one of his oars broke. Photo courtesy of the National Museum of Denmark.