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THIS account of how Nazi-occupied Denmark saved almost its entire Jewish population from extermination in the Holocaust, by helping them escape by sea to Sweden in 1943, is heart-warming and uplifting.
Danish newspaper editor and author Bo Lidegaard has produced a well-researched and gripping book, which shows what might have been achieved in other countries, if the will had existed.
Denmark was a model democracy which, at every level, rejected discrimination against its Jews, despite the presence of the Nazis. They, in turn, wanted Denmark run as a ‘‘model’’ occupied territory with the minimum of trouble.
When the threat of a German round-up of Danish Jews for deportation came in 1943, an audacious secret plan was carried out by the Danes. It resulted in 7,742 people – 95 per cent of Denmark’s Jewish population – being spirited by boat to neighbouring Sweden, where they were cared for until the end of the war. Only a small number were captured by the Germans and murdered.
At a time when human decency was in short supply, Denmark and Sweden’s behaviour shine out like a beacon of light.
Anthony Looch
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