The Courage of Their Humanity

"The difference is what evolved subsequent to the occupation. Whereas in Denmark the democratic government chose to accept the ultimatum of the German occupation, which meant that the Danish government remained in power. In Norway and the Netherlands, the countries we are most similar to, it was the opposite. Those governments went into exile. And that meant that both Norway and Holland were exposed to direct Nazi rule from day one. So the Nazis took over society and the whole civil service and those administrations became infected with Nazism."
[Anti-Semitism] "did exist prior to the war. You had the same stereotypes about how the Jews were supposed to be. But it was never of the Nazi dimension or like Eastern Europe. Denmark developed a notion that the real defence we had as a society against Nazism and communism was to rally behind democracy, which of course is incompatible with anti-Semitism. So all the ideas that went against democracy became defined as anti-Danish and anti-patriotic."
Danish journalist Bo Lidegaard

Denmark, a very small country, had eight thousand Jews at the time of the Nazi invasion. The Jews of Denmark were full citizens of Denmark. The country had much earlier decided that it would make no distinction between its citizens; all were equal, all were Danes with all the rights and privileges attending to that designation. A century earlier legislation had been enacted never to register the creed of Danish citizens.

A child living in Denmark of Jewish descent, might have understood that its parents were extremely concerned, and that an event of huge significance had taken place with the Nazi invasion of their country but they were not herded like cattle to be dispersed in cattle cars to concentration camps to be ultimately exterminated. The domination of Denmark by Nazi Germany took place in 1940, and for all Danish citizens life went on, but under the occupation of German troops.

Three years later an order was dispatched to Danish authorities that all Jews were to be surrendered to the German authority. To solve the "Jewish problem" afflicting Denmark, which Denmark's government insisted to the German authorities did not exist. When orders were sent to Danish authorities that Jews must wear a distinguishing 'yellow star', King Christian Carl Frederick proclaimed that all Danes would wear a yellow star.

The Danish Underground Resistance grew stronger and more determined with the demand that all Danish Jews be rounded up. And most Danish Jews were then guided at night through the countryside leaving Copenhagen and other urban areas for a journey that would take them across the strait from Denmark to Sweden, a dangerous journey that successfully saw Danish Jewish families settle in until the end of the war as refugees living in the Swedish interior.

They returned to a country that was in desperate poverty when the war ended. A journalist who was interviewing Bo Lidegaard about his newly-published book, Countrymen, about those years, remarked that many of the escaping Jews found temporary haven in the Danish coastal town of Gilleleje, awaiting a boat to take them to Sweden to wait out the war years.

Even while Germans patrolled the area, the town population committed themselves to shielding their Jewish brethren from discovery.

"I can't think of it without being proud and happy that my countrymen responded that way. This is exactly what we'd all hope we do in a similar situation. We all have to live with the fact that we don't know whether we would have the courage to do that. This is what happened in every town and city. That I can only explain by the fact that people felt they too were threatened. They saw what was happening as an action against Danish society. People responded as if it were they being attacked. They didn't feel it was the other or someone alien. They were helping their neighbour, their colleagues and their classmates."