by Bo Lidegaard
When Duckwitz returned to Copenhagen and talked with his Swiss wife, Annemarie, he noted in his diary: “Everything I do, I do fully conscious of my own responsibility. Here, I am assisted by my rock-solid belief that good deeds can never be wrong. Therefore, I need to get to work and to muster all my courage.… It’s good that Annemarie thinks exactly as I do. So there is no retreating from the path once chosen. Only once in a while the responsibility seems unbearable. But those moments pass. There is still a higher goal. I bow to this.”4
The double game between Best’s soothing assurances and Duckwitz’s alarming messages helped create the myth that the Jewish operation was Berlin’s project, which Best and Duckwitz opposed with all their might. Of course the action was instigated by Best himself, but for those directly concerned there was great uncertainty and confusion. Rumor flourished both in Copenhagen and Stockholm, causing prominent members of the Jewish community to rush to the Swedish legation to get it to issue visas for, among others, the stateless Jewish agricultural students, who were in a particularly vulnerable position. Minister Dardel, however, could not bend the rules that far, despite all good intentions. The Swedish legation could not help the Jews in such large numbers.5
Kis Marcus biking in the streets of Copenhagen with her children, Dorte and Palle, early in the 1940s.
Private family collection
Gunnar Marcus in his home in Charlottenlund, autumn 1943.
Private family collection
The Hannover family shortly after their arrival in Sweden, October 1943.
Private family collection
CHAPTER 3
* * *
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28
THE MESSAGE
Fading Hopes
Werner Best received the final order to launch the operation on Tuesday, September 28, and the same day he informed Berlin that it would take place on the coming Friday night. At Politiken Bergstrøm sensed that something concrete was now about to happen: “Up at the paper I met Schwartz [a colleague]. He looked very worried. How was the situation going? He spoke of the many German policemen who had poured into the country. Was an action against the Jews about to be carried out? I knew as little as he. The police, the Danish ones, know nothing. Schwartz probably has some Jewish acquaintances that he is worried about.”
For those immediately impacted it became increasingly hard to make sense of the normal business of daily life, and Poul Hannover’s notes from that Tuesday show how he suddenly began to single himself out from his colleagues, and how senior members of the Jewish community now began to discuss among themselves how to deal with the many rumors:
Tuesday I was at a meeting of the board of directors within the Manufacturers Association—and apparently none of them thought anything but that there is peace and no danger. Later I was called into a meeting with the [president of the Jewish community] Supreme Court attorney C. B. Henriques. In addition to him Director Karl Lachmann was present and Max Rothenborg and Sophus Oppenheim. It was agreed that it may only be a war of nerves, fomented by the Danish Nazis, and that it was not worth letting them destroy our lives for this—but the two gentlemen from the board asked us, that if something should happen to them, we three would take action—and of course we promised. So I left again for the office.
In the office there was a message that Jørgen [his brother-in-law]had been there—and when I called him, he asked if I could come by. I did—and he asked me immediately if there was anything new. I told him what I had heard at the meeting—and I thought that life would be quite unbearable for all of us if we mutually went around scaring one another—so I had nothing more to say. I could not, however, help asking him if he had heard new rumors. Yes—he had—namely, what hadn’t happened in the previous week would happen in this one. I was not impressed by his source—but called, for safety’s sake, my one friend in the Foreign Ministry and asked him if there was anything new lately—he said definitely not—there was peace and no danger—Dr. Best had reportedly traveled to Berlin and had not returned yet. I called Inger’s cousin’s husband again—he too thought it all overwrought—only there was something with the police he could not understand, but that he would give me an update the following day. I went home quite reassured.
The Warning
During the day Duckwitz rang up Hans Hedtoft, the Social Democrats’ elected leader, who had been ousted from politics by the Germans, and asked for an immediate meeting. Duckwitz would also try to set up a meeting between Werner Best and former prime minister Vilhelm Buhl, but Buhl refused categorically to meet with the occupation’s first man, undoubtedly because he feared Best would try to sandbag him into supporting the formation of a new Danish government. Instead Hedtoft asked Duckwitz to come to a meeting in a discreet “cabin of trust” in the Workers’ Assembly Building, where the Social Democratic executive leaders awaited him: In addition to Hedtoft and Buhl, several other leading Social Democrats also attended. Shortly after the war Hedtoft recalled the message Duckwitz delivered to the group of prominent politicians: “ ‘The disaster is at hand,’ he said. ‘Everything is planned in detail. Ships will anchor at the mooring off Copenhagen. Those of your poor Jewish countrymen who get caught by the Gestapo will forcibly be brought on board the ships and transported to an unknown fate.’ He was white with indignation and shame.”1
Hedtoft relates that the party members divided the tasks among themselves: “Through a clandestine police connection we got cars provided and drove off in all different directions. I went first to the president of the Jewish community, Supreme Court attorney C. B. Henriques’s villa in Charlottenlund. I shall never forget this meeting with the Danish Jews’ leading man. We didn’t know much of each other in advance, but had met a few times.… I asked to speak to Henriques face-to-face, and when we were alone, I said, upset, nervous and unhappy as I was: ‘Henriques! A major disaster is about to begin. The dreaded action against the Jews in Denmark is coming. It’s going to be executed by the Gestapo on the night between October 1 and 2, seeking out all the Jews in their homes, and then transporting them to ships in the harbor. You must immediately make every effort to warn every Jew in the city. It is clear that we are prepared to help with everything.”
According to Hedtoft, Henriques answered with two words: “De lyver! [You’re lying!]” After he was convinced, he kept desperately repeating: “I do not understand how it can be true. I’ve just been at the Foreign Ministry with Director Svenningsen, and he reassured me and said that it is his belief that nothing will happen.” Hedtoft insisted that Svenningsen had spoken in good faith and only reported what the Germans said—but also that the Germans had lied. The action was imminent.
In the following hours the message spread through a large number of channels. Parallel to networks within the Jewish community, the Social Democrats used their dense web of political contacts, conveying to their local party chairmen in the capital information of the planned action, with instructions to ensure that all concerned were alerted. It was more difficult in the provinces, where the warning emerged later and spread more slowly.2
After his conversation with Hedtoft, Duckwitz also went to Dardel, who immediately informed Stockholm that this time it was for real. Evidence suggests that both Best and Duckwitz were eager at this time to send the signal that they would do everything in their power to prevent or limit the deportations. There is an unmistakable element of public diplomacy in the zeal with which Duckwitz spread the message both before and after September 28. Earlier notions that he did this in spite of Best and without his knowledge do not seem likely, although Best, in a telegram to Berlin, expressed surprise at how the Danish Jews could have gotten hold of precise information about details of the upcoming action. During those days Best and Duckwitz worked closely together, and both of their later testimonies also confirm Best’s explanation that “the Jews were warned with my knowledge and in accordance with my wishes.”3
The Decision
The message spread like wildfire, and i
t also reached Poul Hannover the same day, just after he had returned to his home:
When the time was well half past six I was called by a friend of mine: Poul, take a car and come out here immediately. Fortunately I got a car right away—met with one of Knud’s friends out there and got the message: Three men, one of whose source in particular was utterly convincing to me, had just been with him to alert him that it was definitely under way and would happen—to cut it short all Jews in the country would be rounded up during the night between Friday and Saturday and would be taken down to the ships that lay in the harbor—the old would be transported to Theresienstadt by way of Vienna, the others to Poland if they were not liquidated en route.
Yes—so this was the message and nothing else. I got Knud’s friend into my car—as soon as I got home, I called my brothers over. Knud was very little inclined—although he came—I told them, asked the eldest to inform Kis and Gunnar and Knud to inform mother. Then the whole family disappeared out of the house for the night between Tuesday and Wednesday.
The precise information about the plan in Poul Hannover’s diary suggests that Duckwitz had been more detailed than Hedtoft gave him credit for, and proves that it was the direct contact with the country’s top politicians that finally convinced the doubters that it was serious.
Poul Hannover’s son, Allan, reports in his diary that he sat down with his mother and did homework after his father left for the hastily convened meeting. It wasn’t long, however, before Inger Hannover called her father, who was visiting her older sister, Ada. She got a message to immediately pass on to her brother, Hjalmar, who lived nearby. While his mother bicycled over, Allan went out and played with the neighbor’s children.
When they returned later to the Hannover family’s garden, Allan noticed, standing in front of the house, three bicycles he recognized as belonging to his father’s three brothers. The boy realized that the four brothers were meeting to confer with one another, and that something serious was going on.
On the same evening Kis writes: “Tuesday Johanne Kruse was with us for dinner. We got a call from Flemming, who wanted to warn us, but I reassured him that we ourselves were reassured. While Gunnar and Dorte followed Johanne to the trolley (Palle was already asleep), Aage Hannover came over, very upset and said: ‘You must hurry away from here; The Gestapo has been with Hjalmar. I have heard from a reliable source that we are to be taken tonight and sent to Poland.’ I rushed to pack our bags, and when Gunnar came home, we woke Palle and walked through the woods to our refuge. I had stupidly called down there to say that we were coming, and we were afraid that the conversations had been intercepted, and that they would come and pick us up during the night.”
While Duckwitz’s warning spread in the family, Dr. Meyer seemed not to have received a clear message. On the other hand his son had some alarming news that ensured that the pediatrician would not sleep in his own bed: “Tuesday September 28, Hjalmar came to me and told me that while he had been out in town, three Germans had been in his office, one by the kitchen stairs, and two on the main stairs. As he was not there, they asked when he had last been there? The answer was: Not in the last few days. They forbade anyone to inform him about their visit, stood and stared into his office, and left. As soon as he came back the staff at the other offices told him about the Germans’ visit. He and his family have been in hiding since. As it occurred to me they might come looking for him at my place, I went over to Honoré [a colleague] and spent the night there.”
For Poul Hannover it was a harrowing night. He was no longer in doubt about what was to begin: “I do not think I will ever forget the night that followed, while I lay awake and wondered what was going to happen. I wouldn’t have thought that this could happen—but I didn’t dare disregard it, given the source it came from—and for this very reason it became clearer and clearer that it would not help to take refuge in the countryside. If this was real, then there was only one option—we had to leave the country.”
Adolph Meyer during the first part of the occupation. Dr. Meyer was part of the well-off Copenhagen bourgeoisie and also had a close connection to the leaders of the Jewish community.
Private family collection
Erik Nyegaard, who was instrumental in helping both the Marcus and Hannover families, and later Dr. Meyer, in their escapes. The photograph dates from the 1950s.
Scanpix
CHAPTER 4
* * *
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29
DEPARTURE
Which Way?
The next morning, Wednesday, September 29, the day before the Jewish New Year, there was an early-morning service at the synagogue on Krystalgade, where warning of the impending raid spread through the congregation and from there along countless roads to almost all Jews in Copenhagen and to most in the provinces. But the community did nothing to organize a unified response, let alone help members to escape. Everyone was left to himself and his family and friends—or to the scattered private initiatives to organize flight and temporary hiding. It proved fatal for the most vulnerable groups, among others, for the so-called Aliyah-children, who did not necessarily have any contact with other Jews, and also for some of the old people at the Jewish nursing home in Copenhagen who had not been evacuated by their relatives.
The same day several senior police officers arrived from Germany, including the aforementioned special command of experts from Berlin under the leadership of Adolf Eichmann’s deputy, Sturmbannführer Rolf Günther. It was also Duckwitz’s thirty-ninth birthday, and though he celebrated much of the day together with his Danish friend Hans Hedtoft, he noted gloomily in his diary: “Everything looks bleak and hopeless. Preparations for the Jewish action are rapidly being made. New people have come—experts in this sordid business. They will not find many victims.”1
But for the team of professional German police who were now deployed, the goal was clear: The trip had finally begun for the Danish Jews, and the German administration in Denmark drifted rudderless toward the disaster it had caused.
On the same day Danish foreign police told the Germans at Dagmarhus that the Swedish legation had tipped the scales when it came to the issuance of visas to Sweden for Danish Jews. As mentioned, the Swedish minister, Gustav Dardel, stretched the rules to the extreme and probably beyond them. The lawyers at the foreign police now thought this to be too much, especially with the long string of temporary passports. Best promptly responded and informed Berlin that he would stop the traffic. Despite attempts by the Danish Foreign Ministry to ease up again, it was clear that the road to Sweden by way of a massive issuance of passports and visas was open to only a few. Most had to find other ways.2
For Poul Hannover the decision was already made. It was also his a birthday. He turned forty-six and was not going to sit still and wait until he and his family were collected by the Gestapo: “I told Inger about my determination—she could not help but hope that maybe it was a false alarm—and that one did not need to flee the country, but could come back little by little. In the office I announced my plan to my immediate entourage—they could only agree with me that there was little else to do. One rushed out to explore the possibility of getting away from Skovshoved or Tårbæk [harbors north of Copenhagen], but found out that both were equally impossible. I immediately set off again—beginning with an old friend, but did not find him—then proceeded to get a visa—on to Louis’s office, where I both wanted to warn an emigrant they have there, who had previously considered escaping, something I have so far advised against—and partly because I wanted to hear from him if he knew any way out.”
Amid the feverish preparations for flight, Poul Hannover also tries to attend to his daily business, which on this day included a meeting of the Industry Council. Suddenly the minor everyday squabbles are seen in a glaring light by someone who knows that he and his family face an unknown fate: “An almost perfectly ridiculous meeting about whether the Danish authorities should protest to the German authorities in the Netherlands and Be
lgium as they appeared to be standing in the way of exports from Danish companies that were run by Jews. I advised them to take care of the issue—I could not tell them it probably would have lost its topicality before it went forward.”
Poul’s day continues with hectic but also perplexing activity: How could the family get away? Illegal avenues were not obvious for the law-abiding businessman who preferred to engage friends, colleagues, and employees to explore various options. At the same time the warning was confirmed by several sources: “I met Annalisa on the road—she called me to give me a message: ‘Poul, you know, you must not be home. I just came from the minister—he’s giving a strong warning.”
The message had gone through but the practical difficulties piled up rapidly:
I continued on to the office on Bredgade—which had been notified that our passports also required visas, but we were going to have to go out ourselves and sign them at the Swedish travel agency. I telephoned to Inger to take her bike and meet me at Titan—and cycled out there myself.… Inger and I got a car and left for the central station. The genial manager of the travel agency had been alerted by the minister—he immediately asked me if I was aware that the situation was extremely serious. As it turned out, we needed photographs—it all took time. We met a couple of acquaintances … but there was not much to say for mutual comfort. When the practicalities were done, I left Inger to wait for the passports and proceeded to Erik Birger [a friend] who in every detail confirmed what I already had learned—though he held the view that after a certain time, maybe 3 weeks, it might calm down somewhat as by that point in time they wouldn’t be too eager to keep searching. He promised to let me know if he heard of any ways out.… Finally Inger came—she hadn’t money enough to pay for the passports, so we had to return to the bureau and pay—then out to Titan where we loaded the bicycles onto the car and continued home.