Term Paper on "How and Why the Danish Jews Were Saved From the Holocaust"

Term Paper 15 pages (4304 words) Sources: 6 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Danish

In April 2004, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen accepted the Lyndon B. Johnson Moral Courage Award from the Holocaust Museum Houston honoring his country's World War II rescue of thousands of Jews from occupying Nazi forces. The award was given to Denmark for "the miraculous action by people of all levels to save the Jewish population during the Holocaust." In Jerusalem, a boat-like monument signifies the 25th anniversary of the rescue of Danish Jewry, a school is named in Denmark's honor and many Israeli cities and towns have a street or square commemorating the heroism of the Danes. In addition, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem displays a small boat used to ferry Jews to safety in Sweden. The boat is situated near the Righteous Alley that represents rescue, hope, life and trust in the human spirit. Denmark was the only occupied country that actively resisted the Nazi regime's attempts to deport its Jewish citizens. How this event came about is now well-known. However, still in question is why Denmark and not other countries took the risk of contradicting Germany. Although scholars hypothesize the reason, the ultimate one is still open to interpretation.

The story of saving the Jews during the war has become a model of citizenry. However, there are others who say that even more telling is what happened after the war. Although a few of the Jews' homes were occupied after they left, when most of the Danish Jews returned, they discovered that their homes, pets, gardens and personal belongings were cared for by their neighbors. This connection between the Jews and Danes was not recent. In most of European history, anti-Semitism was ingrained in many of the cultures. Regardless of their legal status, Jews were considered outsiders as long as they remained truthful to their religion.

In Denmark this situation was very different. Although not always a paradise for Jews, many forms of discrimination survived the arrival of the first Jewish citizenship in 1814 and the experience of the Danish Jewry in the nineteenth century normally stressed emancipation (Buckser 2). Jewish immigrants arrived in Danish territory as early as 1628, when King Christian IV tried to establish a new commercial center in Gluckstadt, Slesvig. In order to attract capital, he offered the Jews religious privileges, and a number of them moved in from Hamburg and Altona. They left when the center never was established. Jews were once again invited to the country in 1560 when Denmark's war with Sweden left it financially destitute and needed new capital (Bludnikow & Jorgensen as noted in Buckser 21). Jews, as any other religions other than the Lutherans, were not forced to convert but not allowed to hold other religious observances. This changed in 1684 when Jewish services became legal. Ten years later, they received permission to establish a cemetery outside a northern boundary of the city.

During the period of absolute monarchy from 1660, the king permitted some non-Lutherans to enter the kingdom after the Roskilde peace agreement with Sweden. Most of these were soldiers the king hired for in continual thwarted attempts to overthrow the Swedish king. The royal military adventures had important consequences for Fredericia, built in 1650 as a fortress in Southern Jutland. To motivate citizens to move there, the king decided in September 1674 to give "freedom of conscience for all Christians" who were willing to move and live within the ramparts of Fredericia. In 1682, this localized freedom of religion also included the Jews (Lodberg 139).

The Copenhagen Jewish community dates back to the 1670s, when several Jewish storeowners began moving into the city from northern Germany. As time went on, different Jewish factions developed -- Ashkenazic (eastern European), Sephardic (western European) and Hamburger, but none were considered Danish either by themselves or the county. They were considered a distinct culture, language and legal system; their interactions with the Christians primarily through business. In fact there was a variety of special requirements: they were not allowed to employ Christian servants, because they may be seduced by their employer; Jewish men were imprisoned and banished if impregnating a Christian woman; Jews swearing an oath in court had to do so in a synagogue dressed in ceremonial robes where a rabbi was present (Kisch). Jewish persecution, although not to the extent in other countries, did exist.

Despite the fact that by 1780 1,600 Jews lived in Copenhagen, they still had to have special permission to settle in the country. To do so, they had to possess 1,000 rix-dollars, build a house, and open a business. In addition, they had to pay the police a special entry fee of 100 rix-dollars for the police to find, arrest, and expel Jews living their illegally. Though many were impoverished, some Jews did become very wealthy. Jews were not forced to live in special ghettos and allowed to administer their own religious and social affairs (Bludnikow and Jorgensen in Kisch.).

The monarchy, more or less forced into an alliance with Napoleon after Britain bombarded Copenhagen in 1807, knew the French emancipated the Jews and wanted to improve conditions for the Jewish community, likely because of the war with Norway ending in 1814 and the need for wealthy and loyal Jewish community members. With time, the Jews did assume more of the Danish culture. In 1814 Danish Jews were granted civic equality and in 1849 received full citizenship rights. Judaism was now known as the "Mosaic Faith" (as it is still known), and the civil authorities took numerous measures to bring the religion in line administratively with the state church (Bludnikow and Jorgensen in Kisch). The Decree of 1814 symbolized a major change in the history of the Danish Jews. The Jewish people's isolated life came to an end, because of the degree of cultural integration that had been taking place over the past several generations. Within a couple of decades, Jews could vote and be elected to the city council (Buckser 33).

It is important to note here that economic difficulties that were occurring over the last year in Denmark led to increased anti-Semitism. Some made accusations that the Jews had sabotaged the nation, and when bankruptcy looked close, an outbreak of anti-Semitic violence started in German and traveled to Denmark. On September 4, a mop in Copenhagen began smashing the windows of Jewish shops and assaulting any Jews they could find (Bludnikow and Jorgensen in Buckser 34). Some Jews went into hiding until the King called in the military.

After that, the Jewish population grew continually until the middle of the nineteenth century when about 4,200 Jews lived in the country. The population later decreased to 3,500 in 1901 because of intermarriage and a low birth rate. After the Kishinev pogram in Russia in 1903, approximately 200 Eastern European refugees arrived to for permanent Danish settlement. In 1921 the total Jewish numbered 6,000 (Buckser 22). The Zionist movement was introduced into Denmark in 1902 as the Dansk Zionistforening was established; then the World Zionist Congress then moved its headquarters to Copenhagen for the rest of World War I, because of the country's neutrality.

By the beginning of the 1920s the last of the immigration ceased with the end of America's open door policy, and all went well for over a decade. In April of 1933 King Christian X was asked to visit the Copenhagen synagogue for a 100th anniversary celebration of the building's construction. However, between the day the invitation went out and the day the king was supposed to visit, Hitler had come to power. The Jewish congregation thus suggested the king should put off his visit, but Christian X insisted on coming and became the first monarch in Scandinavia to visit a synagogue. This incident is symptomatic of the way the Jewish community reacted to the growing threat in Germany. The attitude seems to have been that it was best not to call attention to the community's existence and thus avoid risking the growth of anti-Semitic attitudes in Denmark (Kisch).

A policy of silence, appeasement, and even cooperation with German authorities was characteristic of the government and news media in the 1930s for a variety of reasons. Ever since Denmark lost the German speaking duchy of Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia and Austria in 1864, successive Danish governments feared and tried to avoid provoking Germany. Furthermore, after World War I Denmark had been reunited with the northern, largely Danish speaking part of Schleswig, and the Danish government was anxious about German irredentism. Although anti-Semitic behavior was not widespread in the Danish population, there was a Nazi party with as many as 12,000 members and some conservative political groups emulated the dress and rhetoric of the Nazis.

Denmark was surrounded on all sides during World War I, in an open and vulnerable geographic and economic position. It realized it had to stay neutral to remain solvent. It suffered significantly due to major shipping losses, economic dislocations, inflation, and speculation. In 1916 the government decided to sell the… READ MORE

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