Published: 7 February 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Recent research re-examines the historical myths surrounding the rescue of Danish Jewry, exposing surprising underlying interests.
For many years, August 29, 1943, was seen to be the watershed date on which the Danes ceased to cooperate with Nazi Germany and declaratively joined the Allies. The rescue of the Jews, which took place about a month later, bolstered this perception.
Most of the facts about the rescue of Danish Jewry are not in dispute. The story became a formative myth that is taught in the Israeli school system.
However, in recent years quite a few researchers, especially Danish scholars, have questioned the idea that the Danes didn’t co-operate with the Nazis.
They maintain that a few weeks after the members of government stepped down, relations between the Danes and the Germans returned to the former routine and the proportion of Denmark’s industrial production earmarked for Nazi Germany remained intact.
After August 29, a state of emergency was declared and the Reich’s plenipotentiary in Denmark, Werner Best, decided to expel the Jews to Theresienstadt. Best himself leaked the date of the expulsion, enabling the massive rescue effort by civilians.
Researcher Orna Keren-Carmel explained: “Best was able to report to Hitler that Denmark was ‘free of Jews.’ The fact that the Jews had escaped from the country and had not been deported to Theresienstadt made little difference, from Best’s point of view.
“The Germans received intelligence information in real time that thousands of Jews were reaching Sweden, but they had a greater interest in preserving fruitful relations with the Danes than in annihilating the country’s small Jewish community.”
Keren-Carmel also questions the myth of the rescue of Jews as a great humanitarian act. “The Danes who helped the Jews did so in order to preserve the country’s democratic character – not as part of a resistance operation.”
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The Myth Behind the Rescue of Denmark's Jews from the Holocaust (Haaretz)
Photo: Danish Jews escaping to Sweden in September, 1943. (Scanpix Denmark/AFP)
