It was at the beginning of October 1943 that a drama played out in Denmark which had no parallel in any other German-occupied country in western Europe. October 1 marked the close of Rosh Hashanah and most Jewish families would have been at home - which was why the date was chosen by the Germans to implement a countrywide round-up of Danish Jews prior to their deportation to death and concentration camps. In fact, three days earlier the Jewish community had received a tip-off about the German operation, so most Danish Jews had already gone into hiding. Sweden, Denmark's neutral neighbour, simultaneously declared that it would take in any Danish Jews who wanted to come. And so, over the course of some three weeks, the Danish underground, with help from the general population, managed to smuggle Jews to the coast where fishing boats ferried them across the short gap to Sweden. In this way, over 7000 of the 8000 Danish Jews reached safety, along with almost 700 non-Jewish relatives. Less than 500 Danish Jews were deported, but the majority of these survived the camps after skilful diplomatic intervention from both Sweden and Denmark during 1944. As a result, a good 90% of Denmark's Jews survived the war. This contrasts starkly with the Netherlands which lost 75% of its Jewish population to the Holocaust - and, equally, with France and Italy where at least 50% of Jews survived. What lies behind these figures is how complex this over-arching phenomenon we now call the Holocaust was, with different factors determining different outcomes in different countries. Sweden's readiness to take the Danish Jews was obviously crucial. But we know also that the Germans more or less turned a blind eye to the rescue operation, partly because the Danish government and monarchy had remained intact after occupation and in late 1943 Germany had more pressing problems on other fronts. The Netherlands, by contrast, had largely lost its sovereignty under German occupation; in France, significantly, it was foreign Jews living there (mostly Polish refugees) who tended to be arrested and deported, with Vichy France largely insisting that any Jews who were French citizens must not be touched. So the popular notion of the Holocaust as some monolithic German programme driven from Berlin is now seen as deeply flawed. Local factors - local populations, national governments, the timing of events - played a huge part.
If you think you know about WW2, it's time to think again.
An Understanding History Podcast
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