FAIR WARNING: THE ESCAPE OF DANISH FROM NAZI- OCCUPIED DENMARK

BRADEN WYLIE

The origins of European anti-Jewish policy did not begin and end within the term of the

Second World War. The final solution sought by only occurred when all other options in the minds of the Nazis had been exhausted. In hindsight, the Jews of Denmark were a small population, but they had the potential to swing a country’s cooperation in an instant, if unregulated aggressive actions by the Nazis proceeded. Their rescue in early October of 1943 has been popularly heralded as a success story, with various resourceful and compassionate

Danes who helped orchestrate the secret rescue of the Jews under the noses of the German forces. The escape was heroic, until historians decided to dig deeper. They uncovered actions by individuals that could not be ignored and conditions that Werner Best and may have found favorable for allowing the Jews to freely escape, never to see the confines of death camps plotted around Europe. The story began as one of savior by the fellow Danes, but has since been deconstructed to the point of being considered another element of the Nazi’s final solution in Judenrein. The popular story of heroism in Danish society has since been challenged by facts and claims that the escape of the Jews was just what the German Nazis wanted to occur.

The Holocaust that occurred in Europe resulted in the death of millions of Jewish residents and those unfavorable to the Nazi regime. As Germany continued its tirade in Europe, it violently captured and deported millions of innocent people to death camps where populations were decimated. However, Denmark was an exception to this, as it was the only Nazi-occupied country to rescue almost all of its Jewish population. 7,742 of roughly 8,000 Jews living in

143

Denmark in 1943 had escaped to their neutral neighbor Sweden.1 It was unusual that so many people were able to escape, but also unusual were the conditions that were established once the

Germans invaded in April of 1940.2 When the Germans arrived, there was little resistance and neither the Danish crown nor the government fled. German ground and sea forces invaded

Denmark, and the government was forced to capitulate almost immediately.3 envisioned Denmark as his Muenster Protekorat or model protectorate, a part of Germany that would operate under its own internal power but was under the protection of Germany.4 The

Danish crown, government and federal institutions remained operative as Germany sought many industrial and agricultural outputs that Denmark could supply for the war effort. The model protectorate ensured that King Christian X would remain in power and his army would follow orders under recommendations of the German officers on the ground. Upon occupation, King

Christian announced,

The Danish Government has, under protest, decided to adapt its policies in accordance with the occupation which has taken place and, consequently to proclaim the following: The German forces now present in the country will establish relations to the Danish military forces and is the duty of the population to refrain from any resistance to these forces. The Danish government will attempt to safeguard the Danish people… and therefore encourage the population to remain calm and restrained towards these conditions… peace and order must prevail in the country, and loyal conduct must be exercised towards authority.5

1 Sofie Lene Bak, “Repatriation and Restitution of Holocaust Victims in Post-War Denmark,” Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 27 (2016): 136. 2 Andreas Marklund, “Under the Danish Cross: Flagging Danishness in the Years around World War II,” Scandinavian Journal of History 38, no. 1 (2013): 91. 3 Kerry Greaves, “Hell-Horse: Radical Art and Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Denmark,” Oxford Art Journal 37, no. 1 (March 2018): 51. 4 Buckser, Andrew. “Group Identities and the Construction of the 1943 Rescue of the Danish Jews.” Ethnology 37, No. 3 (Summer 1998): 209-226. 5 Greaves, 50. 144

The Danes’ autonomy would remain, but only if collaboration with German authority continued.

The Danish that had almost 30,000 members was a mediating member who made sure the “model occupied nation” would remain one.6 Thus, German forces were under orders to treat

Danes not like conquered peoples, but as fellow Aryans and members of Germany. The Jews in a similar fashion were not forced to endure what many other European Jews were facing. They continued daily life in their own homes and places of employment, with 3 ½ years of being relatively undisturbed.7 The policy of negotiation that occurred kept anti-Jewish action and resistance efforts from drumming up, as trusted Danish individuals were still central to the society they controlled before. While the cooperative nations remained relatively aligned in the years of occupation leading up to October of 1943, the war had changed and plans as to what to do with the Danish Jews had also been altered. When the Germans finally took action to deport the Jews, the Danes had already made heroic plans to promptly escape.

The popular story that persists in Danish society speaks of the resilient community that kept the occupying Germans from harming or deporting thousands of Jews that lived in the nation. To ignore its narrative would be problematic, as it was the story maintained in the decades following WWII and until further details about the Germans came to light. The valiant plan that emerged was to sneak the Jews across the River Øresund to Sweden, where Jews had recently become welcomed instead of turned away. All levels of Danish society refused to allow

Jews to be treated as the other and instead took up acts of solidarity to keep them safe.8 High

German orders had come that the Jews were to be deported on the 1st of October of 1943, but the

6 Daniel Gross, “Spared from by his countrymen, a Jewish refugee hopes that Denmark can regain its humanity,” Smithsonian (16 March 2016). 7 Roul Tunley, “The Danish Jews,” Saturday Evening Post 236, no. 7 (23 February 1963): 74. 8 Fiona Macdonald, “The Danish Network that Defied Hitler,” British Broadcasting Corporation (1 October 2018). 145

Danes and Jews already knew this. On September 29th, a Danish Rabbi had interrupted the morning service at the Krystalgade Synagogue in Copenhagen saying, “We have no time to continue prayers. We have news that this coming Friday night… the will come and arrest all Danish Jews.”9 As word spread and almost all Jews had been warned, the German police and Gestapo organized, raiding local government offices and finding little numbers of addresses where the Jews lived.10 Their unsuccessful raid was partly due to how well ingrained

Jews had become in Danish society, to the point that their religious affiliation was not noted. The

Germans planned to confront Jews at their front doors on October 1st, the day of Jewish Rosh

Hashanah, a celebration of New Year’s that would bring them together in their homes.11 The

German pursuit of the Jews was assigned to the IV-B-4, a small group of men in the German security police department.12 They were dependent on local documents and some Danish informers as to where they could find Jews at the first of the month. When the time came, the

German forces cut telephone lines in Copenhagen, and groups of the police force strolled toward homes they had determined were Jewish. They knocked, but often found no answer.

Leo Goldberger was only thirteen when the Germans knocked on his door and called for his Jewish family to come out. He told the Smithsonian, “the Germans came and tried to take my dad.”13 His family did not answer the door, and the Germans moved next door, where his neighbours told them the Goldbergers were on vacation. Other Jews had been warned to stay away from their homes that Friday night and to find alternate residences for the meantime.

Goldberger remembers his family quickly boarded a boat bound for Sweden. He mentioned how

9 Macdonald. 10 Buckser, “Group Identities.” 11 Tunley, 76. 12 Bak, 136. 13 Gross. 146

the small fishing boat, packed with at least a dozen Jewish escapees, was intercepted by a

German patrol. “We were packed down there in the hold covered with canvases.”14 They boarded the vessel for inspection, but without looking around too much, determined it was only fishing and moved along. Meanwhile Danish doctor K. H. Koster and his colleagues at

Bispebjerg hospital in Copenhagen dressed Jews in hospital staff gowns and shuttled them to the docks where boats were taking the Jews to Sweden.15 While the Gestapo surrounded the hospital, they oddly did not come inside. Jews who had been warned of the coming deportation had been brought into the hospital as fake patients or as parts of funeral processions. One resistance leader,

Jens Moller spoke about how he and his friends also hid Jews when deportation orders were known. He stated,

We went to Pârup Station to fetch a whole trainload of people and distribute them amongst the big farms. For three days, they stayed and I stood by and ran back and forth from the harbor to see when there would be more room for them to get across.16

Moller and Koster then moved Jews on to the final stage of the escape. From their hiding places, they then travelled to meet fishing boats in hospital vans, much like the one in which Leo

Goldberger and Inge Jensen escaped. Jensen, a Danish Jew who was in her young adult years, recalled how the boat collided with a German patrol boat at night, but neither boat stopped for conversation as the Germans moved on.17 Only one vessel was confronted with violent Germans, but no one was killed or captured. The German patrol fired their machine gun but no one was hit.

The underground network that moved almost 8,000 people to safety via outposts and small boats was highly successful and involved Danes from all walks of life. Rescuers came from all social

14 Gross. 15 Tunley, 76. 16 Macdonald. 17 Tunley, 77. 147

classes, ranging from laborers and housewives to medical staff and members of the German instructed Danish police.18 In total only about 200 Jews were found by the Germans at home, including those who did not believe the deportation rumor or were too ill or old to move. One vessel crossing the Øresund was stopped, and its passengers detained, but none were harmed.

The escape was as successful as it could have been. An overwhelming majority of Jews escaped, and the Germans had no idea what had happened. This is what popularly had been believed until further evidence surfaced supporting claims that the Germans perhaps planned the removal of the

Jews, and the escape only went as smooth as it did because it was convenient for Germany. After all, why did not the brutally cruel Nazis knock down doors and drag Jews like Leo Goldberger out of their homes? Why did they not invade hospitals and fishing boats where Jews were likely hiding? The restraint of the Germans was due to many factors with not just one outweighing the next.

The day the Germans landed in their newly acquired nation of Denmark, their presence was felt, but the plan was never to raid and pillage. Rather it was to cooperate for economic benefit. The German administration of Werner Best and Cecil von Renthe-Fink warned leaders in Berlin that action on the Danes or Jews could prompt violent responses from resistance groups, and Germany needed to keep the industrial and agricultural outputs that Danish occupation offered. The protection of Jews was a high national priority in the minds of the Danes when occupation began. As mentioned before, the Jews were highly assimilated into Danish society, first landing in the 1600s and having full rights since 1814.19 They also were home to one of the world’s oldest democracies, believing in human rights and equality above all. As

18 Andrew Buckser, “Rescue and Cultural Context During the Holocaust: Grundtvigian Nationalism and the Rescue of the Danish Jews,” Shofar 19, no. 2 (Winter 2001): 4. 19 Buckser, “Rescue and Cultural Context During the Holocaust,” 11. 148

historian Emmy Werner noted, “while Denmark fell under German control very early in the war, the conditions were unusually mild.”20 In the , students who protested the removal of

Jewish professors were shot or were among the 425 students arrested. Two universities closed due to the protesting of anti-Jewish measures. In contrast, the same protests occurred in Denmark in 1943, but with no response from the Nazis.21 When the Germans attempted to implement policy forcing the Jews to wear the Star of David, King of Denmark Christian X told the

Germans, “if this regulation is enforced, my family and I will be the first to wear the armbands as a mark of distinction.”22 The German policy was decreed but never enforced. Similarly, when believed Nazi sympathizers burnt down a Jewish Synagogue in 1941, Christian visited the

Krystalglade Synagogue the next day, refusing to be compliant with anti-Jewish sentiments made by the Nazis.23 The Danish government reprimanded the man who threw the fire bomb into the synagogue, and the Germans did nothing. On the other hand, Danes who publicly protested Nazi action were not reprimanded. Even under martial law those that were detained were handed over to Danish police for release. German leaders told the Danes about the “Jewish problem” that was causing issues, but the Danes refused to address that the problem actually existed, and responded with non-violent acts of solidarity.24 The Germans looked for a solution to the Jews, but any violent or aggressive action could compromise the policy of negotiation and result in the loss of the nation. The underground Danish resistance to the Nazis had been growing, and the Germans needed a solution sooner than later.

20 Emmy E. Werner, A Conspiracy of Decency: The Rescue of the Danish Jews During World War II (Cambridge: Westview Press, 2002),158. 21 Gunnar S. Paulsson, "The 'Bridge over the Øresund’: the Historiography on the Expulsion of the Jews from Nazi- Occupied Denmark," Journal of Contemporary History 30, no. 3 (1995): 434. 22 Tunley, 74. 23 Macdonald. 24 Buckser, “Rescue and Cultural Context During the Holocaust,” 11. 149

To understand why the Danes reacted the way they did when deportation orders were leaked is much easier to understand than why the Jewish escape from Denmark was favorable for the Nazis. The well-developed resistance movement, under Grundvitgan Nationalism in

Denmark, had caused many problems and causes for concern for the Germans as the occupation waged on.25 The Danish government and its crown had no tolerance for action against the Jews of Denmark, as Christian X’s subtle acts of solidarity made it clear that the favorable occupation would end if the Germans made any moves. Karl Christian Lammers, a Scandinavian historian, stated that,

The Danish government made it clear to the Germans in no uncertain terms that it would resign if the occupation power were to introduce anti-Jewish laws, implement discrimination against Jews or start deporting them.26

The war in 1943 had changed for Germany as they were retreating before allied invaders in Italy.

Resistance and sabotage strikes in Denmark were only increasing to the point British Prime

Minister Winston Churchill dubbed the Danes “savage canaries.”27 The Germans had failed to make any progressive moves towards a final solution of the Jews in Denmark, and any drastic moves could motivate the resistance. The Germans had considered many plans to remove the

Jews from Denmark under similar terms it employed with the Jewish Poles. In efforts before and in early years of the war, German expulsion was the general policy it used, but after realizing it would not work in Poland, Germany shifted its policy to systematic mass murder in 1941.28

Gunnar Paulsson a Swedish-Canadian historian who specializes in the WWII Scandinavian

25 Ibid., 22. 26 Karl Christian Lammers, “The Holocaust and Collective Memory in Scandinavia: The Danish Case,” Scandinavian Journal of History 36, no. 5 (2011): 573. 27 Tunley, 75. 28 Paulsson, 444. 150

Holocaust, stated that “Jewish emigration continued to be permitted and encouraged, while other expulsion plans were considered.”29 The Danes were open to moving the Jews at one point, as long as their safety and the cooperative occupation continued. Franz Radenmacher of the Danish

Foreign Office, who was responsible for Jewish affairs during WWII, spoke with Cecil von

Renthe Fink, the commanding officer on the ground in Denmark before the deportation. He said

Fink, “imagined the Jews might gladly leave Denmark, since the proximity of Germany aroused their grave fears, but where could they go.”30 While Germany sought an answer for the Danish

Jews, the Jews were free to live normally under the protection of the Danish government. Neutral

Sweden had turned away Jewish refugees from other nations, closing their doors fearing being seen as picking a side. In 1942, however, the closed-door policy changed after learning that

Norwegian Jews who had been turned away by Swedish officials were captured and deported to extermination camps by the Germans.31 The avenue in which the Jews could be removed without conflict had just opened.

Eventually the general resistance had grown out of control to the point that the Danish government resigned on the 29th of August 1943, after it felt it could not meet the unacceptable

German demands, and thus the protectorate agreement dissolved.32 “The summer of 1943 had been a blaze of sabotage, strikes and physical confrontations between Danes and Germans,” argues Danish historian Sofie Lene Bak.33 Danes were angry that the Germans routinely infringed on terms of the agreement, as they raided the Danish treasury and criticized the Danes’

29 Paulsson, 444. 30 Paulsson, 443. 31 Lammers, 572. 32 Leo Goldberger, The Rescue of the Danish Jews: Moral Courage Under Stress (New York: NYU Press, 1987), 222. 33 Bak 134. 151

subtle acts of defiance.34 The Germans then declared a state of emergency by taking power initiating martial law, all the while labeling Christian X as a prisoner.35 The orders of martial law came from Werner Best who replaced his two predecessors Cecil von Renthe Fink and Hermann von Hanneken, who Adolf Hitler felt were not resolving the Jewish problem as quickly as desired.36 Best, the Reich Plenipotentiary in rank of Gruppen Führer (Major-General) and known for writing the SS and Gestapo manual that many Nazis used, was left with two options. He could deport the Jews to death camps using a good amount of German resources and risk a

Danish revolt or scare the Jews into expulsion to Sweden. The latter was much more economically efficient and left less room for loss of the favorable occupation. The Germans took

Danish attributes into account, understanding that the Danes did not resist invasion in 1940, and the policy of negotiation had worked for almost three years. Adolf Hitler preferred keeping a stable, close relationship with the Danes, thus the policy of expulsion seemed most formidable.

Besides, it would be nearly impossible to deport all of the Danish Jews considering how well integrated into society they were, not being required to wear the Star of David or have valid identification and due to the lack of files available in the Jewish community offices that had been raided.37 The raids looked like an attempt by Werner Best to warn the Jews of an impending deportation, especially after Joachim von Ribbentrop (Foreign minister of Nazi Germany) suggested attempted deportation officially be ordered.38 Best passed the orders to Heinrich

Himmler, commander of the SS, who brought them to Hitler where the deportation was approved. Sweden had first offered to take the Danish Jews on September 28th, and on that same

34 Buckser, “Group Identities.” 35 Tunley, 75. 36 Paulsson, 445. 37 Paulsson, 447. 38 Paulsson, 448. 152

day Werner Best also notified German Shipping Attache Georg Duckwitz of the plan to expel the

Jews.39 Duckwitz was recruited by the Germans as a spy, having excellent knowledge of the

Danish government and holding the trust of many important officials, but this also opened up the possibility of sympathy for his fellow Danes. Duckwitz worked for the German embassy in

Copenhagen. He claimed to have notified certain Danish authorities and arranged for the asylum of the Jews in Sweden. He refused to notify other German commanders of the plan, but his claims have since been challenged.40 Unilateral agreement to take the Jews unconditionally was made by the Swedes on the 1st of October, only hours before the escape boats began to leave, despite many Jews already crossing the Øresund with legal visas.41 A German minister in

Sweden said, “It may be assumed that the transportation of the refugees is being carried out with

German convenience.”42 Duckwitz claimed he visited Sweden and spoke to officials there, but his dates never aligned in his story and his claims have since been considered less credible.43

Duckwitz’s claims simply came too late, and many other details suggested the German policy was already in motion. Nonetheless, Duckwitz did warn Hans Hedtoft, a leading social democrat, of the plan to deport Jews and was held in high regards in Denmark following the war.44 Hedtoft informed Jewish community leader C. B. Henriques who warned Jews to seek refuge and not answer their doors. The first two stages of the German plan to fear the Jews into expulsion were complete as the Danes and Jews were notified of the deportation plans, and the Swedes were ready to take them, but two more crucial stages remained.

39 Werner, 158. 40 Goldberger, 222. 41 Paulsson, 435. 42 Paulsson, 435. 43 Paulsson, 452. 44 Goldberger, 222. 153

The Germans could have instilled fear through the deportation orders and hoped that no

Jew be caught or harmed, but this was far too risky. The German police force had to be told to not interfere, and the Øresund that would act as the waterway to escape needed to be left unguarded. Another factor of the plan was that the orders had to seem serious as to instill some fear in the Jews, to the point of seeking escape. Werner Best offered a convincible prop after ordering a German ship to Denmark with a capacity to hold 5000 people.45 The ship was never loaded, but the official order made the deportation orders a little more believable. Best also made it known that 1,500 Ordnungspoleizi (German Nazi reservists) would be available for the .46 It was understood that he told the officers that they were forbidden from kicking in doors and raiding apartments. Instead they should move to the next house if no answer was given.47 Gunnar Paulsson noted, “The Orpo men were under instructions to knock on the doors of Jews who were arrested, but if no one answered to leave peacefully.”48 They did not chase

Jews who did not willing fall into custody, instead turning a blind eye or ignoring their existence.

As Leo Goldberger mentioned, the Germans knocked on his family’s door and did only that.

They made no persistent effort to come inside and violently drag the family out like they did to the Jews in other parts of Europe, an astonishing deviation from normal Nazi procedure. The

Germans only captured 281 Jews in their homes or in public, mostly the elderly or immobile. As

Sofie Lene Bak stated, “the German Army remained on the whole passive, despite receiving orders to support the police.”49 The term support was loosely implemented, as the soldiers allowed the Jews to escape without trouble. As Dr. K.H. Koster stated, the Jews that hid in the

45 Paulsson, 453. 46 Bak, 136. 47 Buckser, 5. 48 Paulsson, 435. 49 Bak, 135. 154

Bispebjerg Hospital before being shuttled to the harbour came face to face with German soldiers after deportation orders had been made, but the Germans did no thorough inspection of the individuals or the hospital itself. Even when a hospital van packed with Jewish escapees headed towards the boats was spotted by a Gestapo police car, it followed but never confronted them, eventually slowing and stopping its low-speed pursuit.50 The boat that had been fired on, and the one that directly collided with a German patrol were never confronted or arrested. The many

German and Danish shore patrols between the narrow Baltic and North Seas did not interfere with the many fishing boats making trips to Sweden. The passage had been considered impassable, but it became passable when all large German patrol ships were ordered to be in for repair or service early in September, by credit to Paul Ernest Kanstein. Kanstein held the title of

SS Brigadefüher, a German embassy official who passed the word to a Danish harbourmaster of the last name Camman.51 His orders told the Germans to not interfere with boaters until October

14. Only one ship was documented as patrolling the Øresund Sea, and it was the Wartheland.

The Kreigsmarine Officers who operated the German coast guard ships on the Øresund were not dispatched to patrol the sea for transports to Sweden. Rather they were ordered to be docked at night, when most Jews made their escape.52 When the Germans learned of the escaped Jews they responded with anger, arresting Danish Army Major General Ebbe Gortz and many of his other

Danish officers. The Germans told what remained of the Danish government that they would release them if they revealed where the Jews had gone, to which the government replied, “we can’t see much point in exchanging one Dane for another.”53 The regular German army seemed

50 Tunley, 76. 51 Paulsson, 438. 52 Buckser, “Rescue and Cultural Context During the Holocaust,” 7. 53 Tunley, 76. 155

to have played a large part in the escape of the Danish Jews, but understanding how much deeper the orders went is another story all together.

It was said that, “Many members of the German armed forces disliked Gestapo methods, so they deliberately looked the other way on escaping Jews.”54 This would have been held to greater credibility had more Jews been caught by the seemingly loyal Nazis, but the numbers suggest that almost all German patrols knew what their orders were that night. After all,

Himmler, Ribbentrop and Hitler all knew of the situation and the deportation plans in Denmark at some point in time. The theory that the deportations were likely initiated by upper echelons of the Nazi regime and sabotaged by lower officers is possible, but many factors suggest otherwise.

General-Lt Hermann von Hanneken was the local Wehrmacht commander and chief of the

German security police. A predecessor to Best, he refused to mobilize troops and wired a telegram to Berlin pleading that the deportation be cancelled. Rudolf Mildner, the SS-Standurten füher, also motioned for the deportation to be cancelled and ordered that his troops not enter

Jewish houses by force. Interestingly enough, he was considered a “rabid Nazi” by Hitler himself and headed the extermination camp of Auschwitz as a SS Commander before being relocated to

Denmark.55 An evil Nazi who suddenly had a change of heart seems unlikely, but one who followed orders from higher authority seems probable considering the post-affair factors. When the deportation orders finally slowed, there followed no investigation or consequence for those publically involved. While Duckwitz preached his actions, Werner Best blamed the failed deportation on Mildner who faced a simple repercussion of being reassigned back in Europe.56

Really, he had no further use in Denmark as the Jews had been expelled from the nation.

54 Tunley, 77. 55 Paulsson, 435. 56 Paulsson, 440. 156

Heinrich Himmler did not remove Best from his position, despite his complete control of the operation and deportation. Himmler then likely was the main deviator from a traditional Nazi deportation, writing to Best both before and after the affair. In a letter shortly before the deportation, Himmler wrote how the deportation, “will remove the most important saboteurs and agitators.”57 In a letter after the failed deportation, Himmler praised Best for his removal of the

Jews. The tactic of scaring the Jews to the point of escape did not cost the German army much of its resources and allowed them to reassign and refocus on areas where it was starting to fall back.

After all, Best had previously signed the death warrants of 8,000 Poles before coming to

Denmark.58 His actions were uncharacteristic of a Nazi, but convenient if the deportation orders were just a fear-instilling tactic. When Hitler questioned Best’s actions, Best said he had followed orders of the Judenrein policy, clearing Denmark of its Jewish population. Germany did not break its trade relations with Denmark or Sweden, even after knowing fully that they each equally participated in the escape of the Jews.59 Heinrich Himmler did, after all, approve the deportation orders that looked to capture and deport almost 8,000 Danish Jews, and it was possible that Hitler also knew of a deviant plan that would save Germany’s great resource, but that has never been proven.

Following September of 1943, a deal between the Third Reich’s Plenipotentiary in

Denmark and Werner Best and Adolf Eichmann in charge of Jewish deportation stated that the

Danish Jews would not be transferred to extermination camps.60 In total, 472 Danish Jews were

57 Paulsson, 441. 58 Alexander Bodin Saphir, “The Tip Off from a Nazi that Saved my Grandparents,” British Broadcasting Corporation (21 October 2018). 59 Lammers, 576. 60 Bak, 136. 157

caught and deported to Theresienstadt, located north of Prague, Czechoslovakia.61 This camp was not classified as a death camp as inhabitants had greater freedom, and packages containing supplies from the outside were allowed in.62 53 Danish Jews died in the camp, a low number compared to the other nations with Jewish deportees. The remaining returned to their homes following liberation, where the Danish public agency managed to protect the properties and items of Jews who had escaped or lived without German intervention. Danes were said to have rented Jewish residences, ensuring they were not looted while they hid and placed items in storage lockers for the day they returned. The Germans agreed with this measure, leaving Jewish homes untouched and Danish charity unobstructed. One captured Dane was sent to Auschwitz in what has been believed to be a mistake, and one remained unaccounted for. What is concretely known is that Werner Best and some of his other officers made it apparently opportune for the many Jews to escape and for the compassionate Danes to help them. While the popular Danish story of heroism exists, the escape’s success is owed to German politics and the proximity of

Sweden more than anything else.

Alexander Bodin Saphir’s Jewish grandparents survived the Holocaust in Denmark, even after orders came down that the Jews would be rounded up and deported to camps outside of

Denmark. He remembers the story that his parents and his grandfather tell of their experience with the Germans in 1943. When the news spread to his grandparents due to a tip off from a high-ranking Nazi, they wasted no time getting to the docks of the harbor and looking for passage to Sweden. His grandparents had been free to work, live, and operate in Denmark until the plans of a mass deportation broke. They paid for a trip on a fishing vessel, but the first

61 Bak, 135. 62 Tunley, 76. 158

attempt was abandoned after their daughter’s cries worried them that a German patrol might find them. The next night they tried again, succeeding this time, becoming one of the many Danish

Jews to be part of the “Miracle Rescue” that would be celebrated in Denmark for decades to come. Recently, historians have challenged the theory, arguing that it was less of a miracle and more of an opportune set up. Saphir’s grandfather’s story describes how a high-ranking Nazi came into his grandfather’s brother-in-law’s tailor shop N. Golmanns of Copenhagen where, after nervously fitting him, the Nazi told him to leave the country while they still could as there was a roundup coming.63 His grandfather never named the high ranking German officer, but

Saphir and his cousins knew that his family took information of all visiting customers to the shop during that period, a shop which was still family-owned. When his grandfather’s brother-in-law suggested it was a certain Nazi official, his cousins had to check in disbelief. An A5 card that was stored in a bureau of the shop from 1943 read a name that further puzzled Bodin, for he knew this individual as a main part of Hitler’s inner circle, a man who pursued France’s Jews and had many executed. As his cousin Margit spent time running through all of the measurement cards, the letter B solidified their family story. The name on the card read “Dr. Karl Rudolph

Werner Best.”64 Astonished, Saphir hopes that this small but interesting piece of evidence can be used by historians to rewrite the narrative of the miracle rescue and maybe shed some light on the true origins of the plotted Jewish escape.

In no way do the actions or motivations of the German actors who deviated from regular policy take away from the heroic actions of the Danes. Whether it truly was an altered German policy or not, the fear was real for the Danes as the Germans did have large military numbers on

63 Bodin Saphir. 64 Bodin Saphir. 159

the ground, ships on the sea, and ruthless Nazi leaders in charge. The Danish miracle will hence remain forever ingrained in their culture. The expulsion of the Jews from Denmark in 1943 came at a time that made sense for the Germans. The Danish nation served as a great benefit to the

Nazis, both politically and economically, and to lose it would have been detrimental to the shifting war. The Danish resistance, however, should be credited as the primary source of Danish

Jews’ survival, as without the actions of certain groups and political figures, Germany may have implemented the deathly final solution that was frequently used throughout the rest of Europe.

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