On This Day: Danes thwart Nazi bid to deport Jews by smuggling 95% to Sweden

OCTOBER 1, 1943: Nazi attempts to deport all of occupied Denmark’s Jews to concentration camps were thwarted by a nationwide bid to smuggle them to neutral Sweden on this day in 1943.

All but 464 of the country’s 7,800 Jews evaded capture after Adolf Hitler ordered them to be rounded up on the night of the Jewish New Year holiday.

After a tip-off to the Danish resistance on September 28, they were hidden in homes, hospitals and churches in the only instance of a mass defiance against the Holocaust.

Danes from every section of society – from policemen to residents who called anyone in the phonebook with a Jewish-sounding name – helped thwart the SS manhunters.

Then, over a two-week period, fishermen ferried a total of 7,220 Jews – 95%  of the population - and 686 non-Jewish spouses across the narrow stretch of sea to Sweden.

Sweden, which formerly had only granted refuge to Jews with a Swedish connection, agreed to give them asylum after realising that Germany’s Third Reich was in retreat.

And, thanks to pressure from Danish officials, all but 51 of the 464 Jews deported to the Theresienstadt transit camp in Czechoslovakia, survived the Holocaust.

This meant 99% of Denmark’s Jews lived  – a staggering figure when compared to the fact that only a third of Europe’s nine million-strong Jewry escaped the genocide.

It proved that widespread support for minorities and active resistance to Nazi policies could save lives.

By contrast, only 10% of the 3.3million Jews from Poland, which had the largest pre-war Jewish population on the continent, were still alive in 1945.

However, unlike Denmark, attempts to round up Jews had begun there in 1939 and so the Nazis had a much longer period to carry out their secret mass murder.

Yet countries like Hungary also had deportations begin late in the war – but there, 450,000 of its 650,000 Jews were murdered in an astonishing 56-day period in 1944.

Denmark was partially different to these countries because its Jews were largely middle class, not poor, and far more integrated with the general population.

Furthermore, the nation had long fostered tolerance and so anti-Semitism struggled to take root there.

However, Holland also had a strong tradition of integration and open-mindedness, yet 75% of its 140,000 Jews were murdered during its occupation by German forces.

Many historians argue that what really set Denmark apart was the ambivalence of the Nazis themselves, who had treated the country as a 'model protectorate'.

Both the Danish government and King Christian X retained their authority and stayed in Copenhagen after capitulating following Germany’s invasion on April 9, 1940.

By comparison, authorities in Norway, which was also offered favourable treatment because it was 'Aryan', fled their country after the Nazis attacked on the same day.

The Netherlands, which was invaded on May 10, also saw its government and Queen Beatrix flee - and both countries were subjected to increasingly brutal direct Nazi rule.

Similarly neutral Sweden was spared occupation because it was less exposed to Allied attack and it agreed to sell its vast supplies of iron ore to Germany.

Danish authorities fostered Nazi hesitancy by both pledging 'loyal cooperation' to Germany and also insisting that Denmark did not have a 'Jewish problem'.

Its judges also continued to vigorously prosecute anyone convicted of anti-Semitic crimes, such as an attempt to burn down the Great Synagogue in Copenhagen.

As a result, even the most committed Nazis were reluctant to rock the boat and cultivate a bad relationship that would require a bigger occupation force.

But attitudes hardened as the Danish resistance was emboldened by a sense that the Germans no longer seemed invincible after the Soviets began pushing them back.

The Nazis imposed martial law on August 28, 1943 after a series of strikes and sabotage attacks, as shown in a British Pathé newsreel.

Yet not all Nazis were convinced by Hitler and German diplomat Georg Duckwitz was the man who eventually warned the resistance about the deportation plans.

Denmark’s Jews were also helped because their population was small and concentrated in Copenhagen, a short boat trip from Malmo in Sweden.

After the war, Danish resistance members and Duckwitz were honoured as part of the 'Righteous Among the Nations' at the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel.