Archive/File: holocaust/denmark denmark.001 Last-Modified: 1994/10/26 Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish.holocaust Subject: Re: Who Knew? Date: 18 Sep 1994 02:41:35 GMT Organization: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lines: 77 Approved: dpaldric@email.unc.edu Message-ID: <35g9cv$10q5@bigblue.oit.unc.edu> References: <3574pq$d3h@bigblue.oit.unc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: isisb.oit.unc.edu Title: Danes and the Holocaust Originator: dpaldric@isisb.oit.unc.edu From: Krzysztof Kniaz, kniaz@sol1.lrsm.upenn.edu In article <357e3k$dt0@bigblue.oit.unc.edu> Krzysztof Kniaz, kniaz@sol1.lrsm.upenn.edu writes: Paul Blumsteinwrote: This is slightly off of the topic, but is related and somewhat more cheerful [story deleted] >The aforementioned story is a fiction contrived by Leon Ulriss in >his book "Exodus". There's a somewhat lenghty, but interesting >article about it written by a Danish scholar Jens Lund. 1. The author's name is Uris not "Ulriss" 2. On seeing your posting, I spoke to two survivbors of the Holocaust, one from Ruthenia, apne from Budapest. The one from Ruthenia had heard the story of the Danish king *before* being deported to Auschwitz. The one from Budapest does not remember exactly when the story was doing the rounds in Hungary, but it was "definitely before the end of the war". Unless I am mistaken, Leon Uris' novel was written after World war II. >Also, let me quote here (with permission from the author) a text published last winter on the Holocaus-L: >"The positive attitude of the Danes was laudable but not the reason for the survival of the Danish Jews. This lay in Nazi plans and priorities. Nazis weren't much interested in the Danish Jews because only 7,000 of them, and it served their purposes to maintain Denmark as a 'Model Protectorate'. This policy was cancelled on orders from Hitler in August 1943 and planning to deport the Jews now began. The original plan had to be revised because it became apparent it would be a fiasco; many Jews would escape the net and go underground. Now a plan was revived which had originally circulated in the Foreign Office in 1941: drive the Jews out by staging a mock deportation action to frighten them into leaving, meantime leaving the path to Sweden wide open so they could escape. This plan received Himmler's informal approval and was transmitted to Denmark on Sept 28, 3 days before the anti-Jewish action began. Now the local Nazis 'leaked' information to the Danes and the Jews. In the meantime the coastguard was ordered into port, so as not to impede the flight of the Jews, and the German police were ordered not to enter Jewish homes by force 'so as not to create a bad impression'. By the way, among the participants in the mock deportation action, when it did take place, was a 3,000-man Danish collaborationist police force, and the German units that carried out the action were accompanied by Danish civilians, probably members of the Danish Nazi Party, who acted as interpreters. Sorry to take some of the romantic gloss of the Danish affair; there's >really nothing romantic about the Holocaust. --------------------------------------------------------------- Footnote Number 113 on page 333 of "Konzentrationslager Dokument F321 fuer den Internationalen Miltaergerichtshof Nuerenberg" (a translation into German of "Camps de Concentration. Crimes contre la personne humaine" in 1945": Denmark was occupied by German troops in April 1940 and capitualte without a fight. Unlike in most other occupied territories, the Germany occpiers had little success in forcing national-socialist policies onto the country. A stubborn and successful resistance arose against the anti-semitic legislation demanded, which managed to help the overwhelming majority of Jews in Denmark to escape to Sweden. Even the Danish police force managed repeatedly, by means of passive resistance, to deflect the pressure of the occupying power and make it ineffectual ("ins Leere laufen lassen"). Eight months before the German capitulation, on 19th September, 1944, the German occupying forces stormed Danish police stations in a night raid, arrested nearly a quarter of the entire Danish police force (large parts went underground) and deported these officers from active service to Germany. Eugen Kogon reported that 1,900 Danish police officers spent four months (from October 1944) in KZ Buchenwald." There is *nothing* romantic about the Holocaust. There is a lot that is disgusting about attempts to rewrite history. d.a. From: kniaz@sol1.lrsm.upenn.edu (Krzysztof Kniaz) Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish.holocaust Subject: Re: Who Knew? Date: 19 Sep 1994 15:13:53 GMT Organization: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lines: 472 Approved: dpaldric@email.unc.edu Message-ID: <35k9rh$14a9@bigblue.oit.unc.edu> References: <3574pq$d3h@bigblue.oit.unc.edu> <35g9cv$10q5@bigblue.oit.unc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: isisa.oit.unc.edu Title: Legend of the King and the Star Originator: dpaldric@isisa.oit.unc.edu Jens Lund THE LEGEND OF THE KING AND THE STAR [Indiana Folklore 8 (1975) pp. 1-37], first ten pages: >From the German occupation headquarters at the Hotel D'Angleterre came the decree: ALL JEWS MUST WEAR A YELLOW ARM BAND WITH A STAR OF DAVID. That night the underground radio transmitted a message to all Danes. `From Amalienborg Palace, King Christian has given the following answer to the German command that Jews must wear a Star of David. The King has said that one Dane is exactly the same as the next Dane. He himself will wear the first Star of David and he expects that every loyal Dane will do the same.' The next day in Copenhagen, almost the entire population wore armbands showing a Star of David. The following day the Germans rescinded the ord- er [1]. This account, a fictionalization contrived by Leon Uris in his 1958 novel, Exodus, describes a well-known event from the dark days of Nazi hegemony in Europe. It is familiar to the many per- sons who heard of the heroic deed during the war or who have heard or read about it afterwards. Unfortunately, however, the event never took place. Not only did the citizens of Copenhagen and the King of Denmark never wear the Jewish badge, but neither did any Danish Jew, except for the few hundred who were ultimate- ly deported to concentration camps, and even they only wore it after their arrival. Furthermore, the Nazi authorities never decreed the use of the badge in Denmark and King Christian X nev- er, as is also often believed, threatened to wear it himself, if it were instituted. The widespread diffusion and persistent popu- larity, after thirty years, of crying accounts of the King of Denmark's involvement with the Jewish badge is a matter of impor- tance to folklorists, historians and sociologists alike. Essentially, three separate, similar stories about the alleged occurrence circulate. For purposes of discussion, they may be la- beled Versions I, II, and III, respectively. They are, in sum- mary, as follows: Version I: The Nazi occupiers threatened to decree the use of the badge among Danish Jews. King Christian was notified and he in- formed the Germans that, were the badge decreed, he too would wear it, because of the principle of equality among all Danish citizens. The Nazis backed down and never issued the decree. Version II: The Nazi occupiers decreed the use of the badge among Danish Jews. King Christian, on his morning ride through the streets of Copenhagen, appeared, wearing the badge, explaining to the people his adherence to the principle of equality among all Danish citizens. The Nazis backed down and rescinded the order. Version III: The Nazi occupiers decreed the use of the badge among Danish Jews to aid in their identification for purposes of arrest and deportation. King Christian, on his morning ride through the streets of Copenhagen, appeared wearing the badge himself, as did thousands of other non-Jewish citizens. The Ger- mans were thus thwarted in their attempt to identify Danish Jews and rescinded the order. There are, of course, as many variants of the story as there are persons with a memory of it and some of them incorporate elements of two or more versions. As with many modern legends, the legend of the King and the Star has diffused via the printed page and the electronic media, as well as by oral tradition [2]. The ob- jective of this project will be to do the following: 1) To describe the actual events surrounding Nazi persecution of Jews in Denmark and elsewhere that could have given rise to a rumor that the King of Denmark threatened to wear or actually wore the Jewish badge during World War II. 2) To describe the methods of diffusion of the story - printed, electronic and oral - and how this diffusion crystallized one of the thousands of war-rumors of the l940s into a persistent legen- dary form. 3) To offer a sample of some oral variants of the story as it exists today, with sufficient ethnic and social data to speculate about the nature of its persistence and of its adherents' belief in its veracity. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Badges of distinction are probably as old as humanity and have been used through the ages to denote civil, military and clerical authority. On the other hand, they have also been used to specify those deemed worthy of punishment, as for example, the well-known use of the red letter "A" by the Puritans to identify convicted adulterers, as related in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The Scarlet Letter [3]. Religious differences, especially when stigmatized, have also been cause for decreeing a peculiar mark to be worn by the outsider. A few distinctions of dress for He- brews are mentioned in the Old Testament, including a prohibition of fabric of "mingled linen and woolen" [4] and the obligation that a fringe of thread entwined with a blue cord be worn on the outer edges of the garment [5]. After the fall of Jerusalem, Diaspora Jews often wore distinctive garments varying with their places of residence. In the ninth century Muslim world, Caliph Omar II decreed vestments of a distinguishing color for non- Muslims and in Sicily during the same century, the Saracen gover- nor decreed that all Christians must display on their houses a badge shaped like a swine and all Jews a badge shaped like a don- key [6]. In Medieval and Renaissance Europe a number of distinctive badges were forced upon the Jewish population. A shield representing the Tablets of the Law was decreed in thirteenth century England [7]. At the same time, a red and white wheel- shaped badge was decreed in France and in Italy a yellow wheel was used [8]. The First Lateran Council, meeting in 1215, decreed that throughout Christendom, Jews and Saracens should be "marked off... through the character of their dress" but left it up to local authorities to devise the precise form of distinction [9]. Yellow wheel-shaped badges were later used through much of Europe until finally prohibited by Emperor Franz Josef II in 1781 [10]. There is also some evidence that a six-pointed star was used as a Jewish badge in fourteenth century Portugal [11]. Not until 1797 was the yellow wheel abolished in the Papal States, and then only by the French Revolutionary authorities [12]. It is ironic that on 4 April 1933, the morning after the Nazi takeover in Germany, the German Jewish newspaper, Juedische Rundschau, mentioned the old Medieval badge metaphorically in the statement, "Wear it with pride, this yellow badge" [13]. The six-pointed Star of David (more properly called the "shield of David", when translated from the Hebrew, Magen David) was not widely used as a symbol of Judaism until the nineteenth century. It did appear on some Jewish buildings and gravestones as far back as the early Middle Ages, but seemingly only as a part of general kabbalistic heraldry. Its adoption by nineteenth century Zionists seems to have been a deliberate attempt to give Judaism a simple symbol, comparable to the cross of Christianity [14]. Animosity towards the Jewish people has been endemic to Eu- ropean civilization since the early Middle Ages. Although origi- nally based on religious grounds, anti-Jewish feelings were given quasi-racial justification by some nineteenth century nationalis- tic movements, particularly in Germany and Russia, and "Anti- Semitic Leagues" sought to exclude Jews from national life during the early decades of the German Empire [15]. After World War I, Adolf Hitler's National Socialist party blamed Germany's severe economic and political problems on its Jewish population, and following the Nazi takeover in 1933, systematic persecution was instituted. In 1935, special laws, the Nurnberger Gesetze, ex- cluded Jews from German citizenship, ostensibly on racial grounds, and after the outbreak of war, Nazi persecution was in- stituted in the portions of Europe under German occupation, end- ing with a program of mass extermination "the final solution to the Jewish problem" [16]. As early as 1935, Jewish-owned shops in Germany were forced by law to identify themselves as such with a prominently displayed sign. The same year, passports and rations cards of Jews were stamped with a large letter "J" [17]. Also, inmates of German concentration camps during the 193Os were forced to wear distinctively colored badges according to their dissenters, etc. The badge for Jewish prisoners consisted of a yellow and red six-pointed star [18]. It was not until October 1939 that Jews were again forced to wear a distinctive badge in public. This was first promulgated by a local SS commander in the Wloclawek district of Poland and gra- dually spread throughout Polish territory under German occupa- tion. Not until 19 September 1941 was the wearing of the distinc- tive yellow badge, consisting of the Star of David with the word Jude in pseudo-Hebraic characters made mandatory in Germany prop- er [20]. Other nations under German occupation, with the excep- tion of Denmark, were eventually forced to comply with the regu- lations instituting the badge, which was officially designated der Judenstern ("the star of the Jews"). In 1942, the SS publica- tion, Das Schwarze Korps, even advocated the additional identifi- cation of Jews by forcing them to wear black bowler hats, since the star was too easily concealed. This measure was never insti- tuted [21]. Nazi forces overran Denmark on 9 April 1940 and the Danish government quickly capitulated. In exchange for Danish coopera- tion with the occupying forces, the democratic Danish government and constitution were permitted to continue free from German in- terference until July 1941 when, in response to the German inva- sion of the Soviet Union, anti-Communist regulations were decreed. In November 1941, the Danish government was pressured into signing the Anti-Comintern Pact, Germany's anti-Soviet alli- ance. As early as 1939, a congress of pact members in Berlin had declared that the pact signatories considered "a position on the Jewish question" to be part and parcel of the pact's intentions [22]. Public awareness of the anti-Semitic implications of the Anti-Comintern Pact, as well as violent street demonstrations op- posed to its ratification, led to a Danish government proclama- tion that "the pact's ratification does not involve any responsi- bilities for the Danish government not already enumerated in the wording of the pact". The German authorities did, however, engage a Danish Nazi constitutional lawyer, Dr. Julius Popp-Madsen, to draw up a legal brief based upon the Nurnberger Gesetze for con- sideration by the Danish parliament. This brief included an arti- cle prescribing a distinctive badge for Jews [24]. In December 1941, Cecil von Renthe-Fink, the German ambassador and plenipo- tentiary, approached the pro-German Minister of Transport, Gunnar Larsen, about the possibility of anti-semitic measures by the Danish government. A special cabinet meeting was called to dis- cuss the topic and it was declared that any such actions would be dangerous to public order and could conceivably cause sabotage and unrest against the occupying power [25]. Although the small Danish Nazi party (DNSAP) had been agitating against Jews since 1930, the relatively important pro-German and pro-Nazi Danes, in- cluding several cabinet ministers, the director of the national railways, and the leaders of the farmers' organization, never in- volved themselves in the rowdy conduct of the DNSAP. They further advised that no anti-Jewish measures be instituted until the war's conclusion. A German communique agreed to let the matter rest until further notice [26]. Although Denmark is by no means free from anti-Semitism, Danish kings and governments have traditionally protected the rights of Jewish subjects. The constitution of 1848 guaranteed full religious freedom, and even at the end of the nineteenth century, when Jews were being subjected to violence and discrimi- nation elsewhere in Europe, no outbreaks of anti-Jewish hostility occurred anywhere in Scandinavia [27]. Frederik VIII, king of Denmark from 1906 through 1912, and father of the wartime king, was a personal friend of Denmark's chief rabbi, David Simonsen. In 1907, King Frederik personally prevented a threatened outbreak of pogroms in western Russia, by repeatedly writing and wiring his sister, the mother of Tsar Nikolai II [28]. King Christian X, who acceded the throne in 1912, took a personal interest in the Copenhagen Jewish community's welfare. In 1933, the king attended the Copenhagen synagogue's centennial celebration [29]. In 1941 and 1942, two abortive attempts were hatched to bum the Copenhagen synagogue, probably by domestic Nazi hooligans. After the second of these, the king sent a personal message to the congregation expressing his relief that the arson attempt was thwarted. A special auxiliary police unit was then organized by the Copenhagen police to guard the building [30]. It is important to note at this point that the Jewish com- munity in Denmark was, to a large degree, assimilated into Danish national life. Probably less than thirty percent of Danes of Jew- ish origin took any part whatsoever in Jewish community life, and an even smaller percentage were actually practicing the Jewish religion. The rate of intermarriage was so high that many indivi- duals were only dimly aware of their past Jewish heritage and non-Jewish neighbors were often totally ignorant of their ac- quaintances' non-Christian background. Danish society in the twentieth century is highly secularized and the characteristic religious laxness of the Lutheran majority seems to have spread to the smaller religious groups as well. The first few years of German occupation were remarkably lenient, due to a number of factors. First of all, the Danes of- fered little resistance to the initial invasion - indeed some people welcomed it as an alternative to becoming a German-British battleground. A degree of pro-German sympathy also existed among some of the Danish peasantry, who were interested in expanding the produce export market to the south and freeing themselves from their economic dependence upon Great Britain [31]. Then there was the "racial" element. Nazi racial theories included Scandinavians within the so-called "Aryan race" and the Danes were supposed to be especially fine specimens of this dubious variety of humanity. Hitler's personal admiration for Denmark resulted in the policy of the Musterprotektorat ("model protec- torate") which was supposed to show the world the advantages of peaceful submission to Nazi rule. Although it is doubtful that most Danes appreciated foreign occupation, even at first, Danish and German authorities took great pains to emphasize the continu- ing normality of life under occupied circumstances. King Chris- tian himself rode daily through the streets of Copenhagen on horseback as he had done before the war, probably to emphasize the continued legitimacy of the Danish throne and government [32]. The false normalcy of German occupation was, however, doomed to failure. First of all, the unconstitutional anticommunist laws decreed by the government under German pressure after July 1941 led to much bitterness. The Danish government's signing of the anti-Comintern pact late in 1941 and the violent suppression by Danish police of the subsequent demonstrations also took its toil. The drain on the Danish economy of the German war-machine, the gradual imposition of political censorship, the raising of a volunteer corps of Danes (Frikorps Danmark) to fight for Hitler in Russia, and German complicity in DNSAP rowdyism and anti- Semitism, all eventually led to a profound hatred of the occu- piers. Widespread sabotage against railways, German installa- tions and industries supplying the occupiers swept the country and numerous covert anti-Nazi organizations appeared, many of them with ties to the Allies. Ordinary citizens stopped frater- nizing with Germans and private resistance ran all the way from simple unfriendliness to instances of direct violence. The German authorities responded with increasing severity, arresting, deporting and even executing both perpetrators and hostages [33]. The first instance of a direct breakdown in Danish-German co-operation was the so-called "Telegram Crisis" - an incident personally involving King Christian himself. In September 1942, on his seventieth birthday, the king received a letter of congra- tulation from Hitler. His answer, "My best thanks", was deemed an insult in its brevity by the Nazi government and a major crisis resulted. The German ambassador and plenipotentiary, von Renthe- Fink, was recalled and Hitler demanded that a Nazi puppet govern- ment be established in Denmark. Von Renthe-Fink was replaced by Dr. Werner Best, a leading Nazi police official. Best eventually calmed the situation after being counselled by his advisers to resist Berlin's demands [34]. Symbolic actions against the Nazis by the Danish populace took a variety of forms. Red and white badges with the royal monogram, "CX", were widely worn. One account by a Danish Jew who was deported in October 1943 mentions that the monogram badge was worn universally by Jewish prisoners in the Nazi camp at Horse- rod, Denmark, where they were held before deportation, until this was forbidden by the commandant [35]. Great patriotic song fes- tivals were organized all over Denmark. Persons voting in the controversial 1943 election wore red and white badges proclaim- ing, "Har stemt", ("have voted"). The red, white and blue roundel of Britain's Royal Air Force was worn as a knitted stocking cap by many Danes until this was prohibited by the Nazis. Likewise, four coins tied together with a red and white ribbon (the Danish colors) and equalling nine are were worn in the buttonhole to commemorate the ninth of April (9/4) - the date of the occupa- tion. Humorous classified as subtly attacking the Nazis were pur- chased in Danish newspapers [36]. This type of symbolic resis- tance also occurred outside Denmark, especially in France, the Netherlands and Norway [37]. Illegal publications, as well as orally diffused tales of heroism by crimes and atrocity by Germans, circulated widely [38]. Underground humor lambasted the Nazi authorities and their Danish cohorts. DNSAP was reputed to stand for, "De naar sateme ailrig Petrograd" ("They'll never [sateme is a profane expletive adverb] reach Petrograd"). The Jewish badge in use outside of Denmark was lampooned by illegal wit. The yellow star was called "Pour le Semite", in a burlesque of the name of the old German military decoration, Pour le Merite. The letters "J" ("I"), "U," "D," and "E" on the badge were said to represent, "Italien und Deutschland's Ende" [39]. A number of numbskull tales about Hitler and Mussolini circulated, some of which involved a Jew as a protagonist, as did a number of apocryphal tales about King Christian snubbing Hitler or the Germans in general [40]. In the summer of 1943, the political situation in Denmark became completely chaotic. The German military proclaimed martial law and issued a series of demands to the Danish government. The cabinet, headed by the pro-German Prime Minister, Erik Scavenius, refused to capitulate and resigned, and the Germans attacked Dan- ish military and naval installations. Most of the Danish fleet was scuttled, and an emergency committee of departmental chief- of-staff took over the administration of the Danish government. The German plenipotentiary, Dr. Best, demanded police reinforce- ments from Berlin, agreeing to the condition that they were to be under direct command from Germany. At this point the story be- comes complex. Best evidently suggested that these additional troops could be used to deal with Denmark's "Jewish problem". After their arrival, however, he repeated his own and his predecessor's earnest counsel that Danish Jews remain unmolested in order to prevent further public disorder. To this date, Best's intentions regarding the Danish Jews are still unclear. But due to the direct control of the police reinforcements from Berlin, Hitler's obsessive hatred of all Jews was finally able to prevail over the advice of his counselors in Denmark [41]. The arrival of representatives from Adolf Eichmann's Jewish affairs office of the German security police in September 1943 evidently caused considerable consternation among the higher Ger- man authorities in Denmark. Best agreed reluctantly to cooperate and was given back his authority as plenipotentiary, which had been temporarily suspended during the martial law. General Her- mann von Hanneken, the military commander, was ordered to cooperate with Best in spite of the general's protest that the army did not take part in such political matters. Best notified his traffic attache, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, about the impend- ing deportation of the Jews. Duckwitz, himself a former Social- ist, immediately contacted the leaders of Denmark's Social Demo- cratic Party, who in turn notified the chief of staff committee and the leaders of the Jewish community. Duckwitz then comman- deered a plane at great personal risk and flew to Sweden, where he negotiated a secret agreement with the Swedish government to receive as many Danish Jews as could arrive on Swedish soil. Meanwhile, agents of the German security police burglarized the Copenhagen synagogue, stealing its membership list. When Niels Svenningsen, chief-of-staff of the Prime Minister's department, protested this action to Best, he was assured that it was only a routine anti-sabotage action. On the morning of 29 September 1943, Rabbi Marcus Melchior of the Copenhagen synagogue warned his congregation that on October 1, all Danish Jews would be arrested and deported. They were advised to seek refuge in the homes of their Gentile neighbors and await further instructions. On the appointed day, which was also the first day of Rosh Hasha- nah, the raid took place. Hundreds of German police troops and Danish collaborators rushed to the homes of Danish Jews. Of over 7,000 known Danes of Jewish faith or descent only two hundred and eighty-four could be found. After several weeks in hiding, the other 6,700 who had gone into hiding began perilous journeys to Sweden on fishing boats, private yachts and other small craft. Some were lost at sea and some were captured and deported, but most of them reached safety [42]. Along with the highly co-ordinated warning and rescue sys- tem, which involved thousands of non-Jewish Danes, there was also a storm of public protest. The Nazis attempted to placate public opinion by releasing the Danish officer corps, interned during the martial law episode in August. This caused even more outrage, as officers refused to be released in exchange for innocent Jews. Chief-of-staff Svenningsen repeatedly sought audiences with Dr. Best in an attempt to call off the deportation. King Christian, the leaders of religious, political and youth organizations and numerous other prominent citizens sent letters and telegrams of protest, and in churches throughout Denmark an outraged proclama- tion composed by the Lutheran' hierarchy was read by local pas- tors [43]. The two hundred and eighty-four Jews originally captured in the first raid and another one hundred and ninety apprehended in hiding or on the way to Sweden were shipped to the special "honor" concentration camp, Theresienstadt, in Bohemia. In spite of the cruel regime of the camp, eighty-nine percent survived to return to Denmark. This was because of the Danish and Swedish Red Cross's insistence upon regularly sending food parcels. Two months before the end of the war, all Danish and Norwegian pris- oners, including Jews, were sent by bus to Sweden under the su- pervision of Swedish Red Cross chief Count Folke Bernadotte. The buses passed through Denmark on the way, and they were given heroes' welcomes by the local populace along the route, in spite of German attempts to disperse the milling crowds. After V-E Day, all of the refugees in Sweden returned to Denmark and Norway. Fifty-two Danish Jews died in Nazi captivity [44]. The murder of approximately six million Jews by Nazi author- ities in Europe (commonly called "the Holocaust") was one of the most notorious crimes in history [45]. The efficiency of Nazi ex- termination policy was to a great extent augmented by the tradi- tional European hatred of Jews, which gave silent assent and often even active support for the deportations which preceded the murders. In all countries under Nazi rule, including Germany it- self, there were also individuals who were sufficiently conscience-stricken to take personal action at great risk in at- tempts to rescue individual victims [46]. The Danish rescue was probably the most elaborate of these efforts, involving thousands of policemen, government officials, physicians, and persons of all walks of life [47]. The Finnish government, although allied to Nazi Germany, flatly refused to allow any action to be taken against Finland's small Jewish community [48]. Until the Arrow Cross coup in 1944, Hungary, also an Axis satellite, refused to take anti-Semitic actions, and even served as a haven for Jewish refugees from elsewhere. Most of Hungary's Jews were, however, exterminated after the German- engineered change of government [49]. Another ally of Germany, Bulgaria, successfully resisted Nazi demands for the arrest and deportation of its Jewish popula- tion, in spite of its occupation by large numbers of German mili- tary [50]. Belgium, which was under the direct military rule of the Wehrmacht for the duration of its occupation, managed to prevent the deportation, but not the internment, of its indi- genous Jewish population, although Jewish refugees from other countries did not fare as well. Belgium's railroad workers sabo- taged Nazi deportation trains, as did the railwaymen of the Neth- erlands [51]. -- Krzysztof Kniaz, | U of Pennsylvania, LRSM , | "A witty saying proves nothing" Phila, PA, 19104, USA | Voltaire
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