Saving Denmark’s Jews

On April 9, 1940, Germany invaded neutral Denmark (Operation WESERÜBUNG). The country was overrun within a matter of hours. Denmark’s highly productive agriculture was drafted to feed the Reich, and the country’s small but efficient industries were coopted into the Nazi war effort. In return, Hitler allowed the Danish government to continue to manage the country’s internal affairs. King Christian X (1870-1947) continued to ride his horse alone every day through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied by guards, as a symbol of national sovereignty.

Following the bitter sectarian Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) a small Jewish community was allowed to settle in Denmark. By 1940, that community had grown to about 8,000 souls, and was generally well tolerated by the majority Protestant population. One of the most famous Danes, Nobel-prize physicist Niels Bohr (1885-1962), had a Jewish mother.

As the inevitable defeat of the Third Reich became more apparent, Danish resistance to Nazi occupation grew. In response, in September 1943, the Germans dismissed the government and imposed a police state. The roundup and deportation of Denmark’s Jews was planned for the Rosh Hashanah holiday, when it was assumed that most families would be celebrating at home. A sympathetic German diplomat, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz (1904-1973) tipped off Danish contacts about the impending operation.

In an extraordinary act of defiance, an estimated 95% of Denmark’s Jews were smuggled across the Oresund strait (2.5 miles or 4 km at its narrowest point) to asylum in Sweden. Most of the small boats that accomplished this covert evacuation were owned by fishermen, who risked the loss of their livelihood (or worse) if apprehended by German patrols. The going rate for the fare was 1000 Danish kroner (equivalent to abut US $200 at the time).

Jews who were unable to escape were deported to Theresienstadt, the “showplace” concentration camp in Bohemia, where most survived the war, thanks to determined efforts by the Danish and Swedish governments.

Based largely on firsthand accounts by participants that have not previously appeared in English, A Light in the Northern Sea recounts this dramatic story in rich, almost cinematic detail. It will be read with interest by students of the Holocaust, the resistance in occupied Europe, or more generally the Second World War.

One of the boats that participated in the evacuation, the lighthouse tender Gerda III, is preserved at the Mystic Seaport Museum, in Connecticut (https://mysticseaport.org/gerda-iii-danish-lighthouse-tender/).

The author, Tim Brady, a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, is an award-winning historian who has written several TV documentaries.

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Our Reviewer: Mike Markowitz is an historian and wargame designer. He writes a monthly column for CoinWeek.Com and is a member of the ADBC (Association of Dedicated Byzantine Collectors). His previous reviews in modern history include To Train the Fleet for War: The U.S. Navy Fleet Problems, 1923-1940, Comrades Betrayed: Jewish World War I Veterans under Hitler, Rome – City in Terror: The Nazi Occupation 1943–44, A Raid on the Red Sea: The Israeli Capture of the Karine A, Strike from the Sea: The Development and Deployment of Strategic Cruise Missiles since 1934, 100 Greatest Battles, Battle for the Island Kingdom, Abraham Lincoln and the Bible, From Ironclads to Dreadnoughts: The Development of the German Battleship, 1864-1918, Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City, The Demon of Unrest, Next War: Reimagining How We Fight, Habsburg Sons: Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Army, Hitler's Atomic Bomb, The Dark Path: The Structure of War and the Rise of the West, The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War, and Operation Title: Sink the Tirpitz. .

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Note: A Light in the Northern Sea is also available in audio and e-editions.

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