by Bo Lidegaard
Herbert Levysohn, who like several other young refugees was able to see the funnier aspects of this impossible situation, gives a lively description of the situation on the evening train from Hillerød to Gilleleje: “The train was overcrowded, most particularly the two carriages going all the way to Gilleleje. There were so many black-haired people that it was absolutely fantastic. I had been told that we were only 5 going over that night, but there were at least 70 here. Parents with small children, old people, young people, and very few could hide their nervousness. ‘How long is the train delayed?’ ‘When will we get to Gilleleje?’ ‘Give the boy something to sleep so he calms down,’ etc. Idiots, I thought, they can’t shut up. This is all going to fail when they actually advertise that they are about to flee. The congestion in the two small carriages was incredible, the heat unbearable. I pushed myself out onto the platform and got fresh air, amply mixed with rain and coal dust.”3
Dr. Meyer describes the train’s stop at the small unmanned station just before Gilleleje: “When we got to Paarup, there were shouts: ‘Director Nielsen, passenger to Gilleleje, must get off here!’ As the young girl who brought the message did not know otherwise, Henry Nielsen did not think it had anything to do with him and us; he would follow his instructions, which had been typed up in the Gentofte villa. So we stayed on the train. In Gilleleje we had to wait a very long time in the waiting room, and met several acquaintances.”
There was general confusion, not aided by the great secrecy that contributed to important messages being whispered into the wrong ears—and when they found the right ones, they often gave rise to misunderstandings. Levysohn has this version of Paarup station and then the arrival at Gilleleje: “At the station before Gilleleje there was a longer stay. Some people entertained themselves quietly with one another as if there was nothing wrong. One didn’t feel comfortable with the situation. Finally we got to Gilleleje, around 9 p.m. to be precise. I still had not seen the fellow with the Band-Aid, and now it was pure chaos. In pitch darkness people rushed around among themselves and called out to one another. Suddenly someone says, ‘Hello Mr. Levysohn.’ It was headwaiter Bendixen from Marienlyst Hotel, and he was there to help. Shortly afterward I met Jørgen Jacoby, who was also there to help. Finally the guy with the Band-Aid popped up, and gave orders to go into the waiting room inside, where we all gathered. It was not pleasant; everyone was nervous and talking at one another. A man reassured us that the police were there to protect us and there was no danger. The Danish police swarmed in and out and gave orders, but they didn’t seem calm, and I found it all chaotic, as if it wasn’t going to succeed. But one was in the middle of it now, and so one had to hold on.”4
Gilleleje Harbor
There are multiple contemporary reports of the dramatic events in Gilleleje that evening. A Norwegian engineering student from Copenhagen, Vilhelm Lind, was actively involved in the efforts to help out on the north coast during the first days of October. In an account written at the latest just after the war, he noted how things developed after he and a few others had helped to organize the first major shipment of refugees out of Gilleleje, including those arriving at the fishing hamlet on the afternoon train from Hillerød—the train before the one that Meyer and Levysohn came on: “At around 7 p.m. a special train arrived from Copenhagen bringing approximately 175 Jews. Because of the large number and their arrival so late in the afternoon and without any prior organizational work, it was impossible to spread them throughout the town. Therefore they were pushed onto a side track so they could stay put in the carriage until the ship, a schooner they had bought, could sail.”
There were several other, smaller transports planned that evening, and the coastal police undertook to give a signal when the time was best for the individuals to depart: “At 8 o’clock, after it was pitch dark, the train from Copenhagen was driven down to the harbor and up to the side of the schooner, where the contents were loaded on board, after which the schooner sailed immediately. The coastal police were busy investigating something suspicious at the other end of the harbor at the time, and the Germans had not yet appeared in the harbor.
“When the schooner was well away, the other students began to board their ship, and everything seemingly went well and the ship departed.”5
It was around this time that the new, crowded evening train, with Meyer and Levysohn among hundreds of new refugees, arrived Levysohn explains further about the chaotic events at the small station:
We were then divided into teams, I was not in the first team, but I didn’t care if those who were most nervous pressed ahead and ended up in front. After a bit the first team of 19 people marched off from the station and into the dark and the rain. After a while it was us who marched away. Gilleleje was quite dark, only the lighthouse illuminated the town with flashes as we walked along the muddy road.…
We went on for a while, where to was not easy to see, but it appeared to be the main street in Gilleleje. Then we came through some small winding alleyways, through a house, back out into an alley, and then we stopped at a house. We, i.e., 13 people, 12 refugees and 1 police officer. The house we stopped in front of was a mission hotel where the policeman had his little room on the ground floor. We entered. In the room there was a bed, a table, and a chair, and we were to stay until we got further instructions. We stood and sat around and we were ordered to keep quiet, which was difficult for most people. The policeman came back a few times and said we should just wait, how long it would last, he did not know, but as a precaution he gave orders to turn off the lights. Being in the dark without air did not bother me, but the ladies were not happy about it.
The many people in the small, stuffy, dark room were apt to get nervous, but there was still the prospect of making the crossing that evening. It did not last long: “Then he came and told us that the first boat was now departing. We waited. Suddenly there was a shot. The policeman came rushing: ‘The Gestapo is in the harbor, and is shooting at the first boat that was just about to go out.’ A short while later he came again. ‘The Gestapo took the first boat and everyone’s been captured. You must keep yourselves calm, the situation is not good.’ ”6
It seems that Dr. Meyer and his sister-in-law were taken to the same room at the Mission Hotel, where they waited together with Levysohn, and we also have Meyer’s account of the journey from the station:
So we were picked up in teams. It was probably between 9 and 10 p.m., when we were led, sprayed and blown, by a Danish coastal policeman who had borrowed my little flashlight, down to the harbor. We heard from him that a large boat had departed, but the next one with 19 passengers had been shot at, so they dared not send more boats away; moreover, there were German guards coming to the port.
We were tired, hungry, nervous. Together with 8 others we came into a small room with 2 beds on the ground floor in the so-called Mission Hotel. Henry Nielsen also had to spend the night in the “hotel” but we did not see him later. We were not allowed to have lights or open windows, which were inadequately blacked out. After some time, 4 or 5 of the 12 were placed upstairs. We tried to sleep. I lay dressed in one bed, Mary and Mrs. Jespersen on the other, two lay on the floor, one sat in a chair (fortunately there was a WC outside in a corner of the hallway). We could only open the door if there was a specific knock. The cop came by now and then, a bit nervous. He feared that they would not dare to sail the first days.
It was Gestapo-Juhl at work again, and the Norwegian Vilhelm Lind, who was present at the port while the dramatic events unfolded, has given his report of the failed departure of the cutter Danebrog. It was the same boat that had drifted across Gilleleje harbor Sunday night with “Bubi” Cohn and others on board, an experience that already had frightened skipper Juhl Svendsen. On Sunday evening he had managed to talk his way past Gestapo-Juhl and to save his cargo of refugees. This time Gestapo-Juhl set eyes on him just as the Danebrog was about to depart, loaded with nineteen refugees: “When the ship had just left, a car drove down the harbor and out jum
ped three Schalburg men and began firing at the boat.… I could not figure out whether the skipper was hit or not, but the boat began to drift out of control.”7
The Danish coastal police sergeant Mortving was also present at the harbor, and the same evening he reported on the ensuing incident: The cutter Danebrog, led by Juhl Svendsen, had just put to sea with nineteen refugees on board when Gestapo-Juhl surprised it with three or four other Gestapo men. Juhl shouted at the cutter and demanded “that it stop, otherwise more shots would be fired, but the captain did not respond and continued sailing, causing Juhl to fire an additional 20 to 25 shots at the cutter, whose engine now immediately stopped.”
At the sight of the Gestapo, Svendsen had immediately started the Danebrog’s engines and left the quay. At Gestapo-Juhl’s cry the skipper gunned the engine, but he panicked when the bullets began to smash into the wheelhouse where he stood. Svendsen put the engine into reverse, whereupon the boat’s stern ran into the tip of the pier. Svendsen and his assistant, fisherman Peter Johannes, jumped ashore and disappeared into the darkness.
On the other side of the dock Gestapo-Juhl stood with the Danish coastal police officer Mortving, who was not nearly as busy as his German counterpart. While some of the refugees were desperately trying to gain control over the abandoned cutter and go full speed ahead, the wind pitched the boat out into the middle of the harbor, where it ran aground on the sandy bottom at the east pier. Mortving reports: “Criminal Inspector Juhl now turned to me and asked me to provide a dinghy, so that he could get on board the cutter, which was now driven toward the east pier. Sergeant Koblegaard then rowed out with the harbormaster, Christian Svendsen, and Juhl to the cutter, now driven completely into the stone wall on the east pier.
“Koblegaard came back immediately afterward and announced that on the cutter he found a gentleman and a lady as well as a minor child. Furthermore, several people were lying on the stone wall on the east pier, including several women and children of Jewish descent.
“Juhl then took up position on the east pier to cut off those people’s way back along the pier toward land. Immediately after, more German military personnel arrived at the port by truck and immediately arrested the fleeing Jewish people.”
Sergeant Mortving adds for good measure the blatant lie that “none of the police officers had noticed any of the persons referred to arrive at the port tonight.”8
The nineteen captives were transported to Helsingør and then on to Horserød, which was the collection point before further deportation to Theresienstadt.
· · ·
Some groups of the latest arrivals were on their way through the dark streets when they heard the shooting. They had to turn back and seek refuge. The helpers found many who had stayed in primitive hiding places for hours, and brought them into shelter. At the Mission Hotel the situation was untenable. Levysohn gives a report of the mood in the room (where according to his notes there was one bed, but according to Dr. Meyer, two): “These were strange hours passing by. My thoughts turned to Mom and Kate, happy as I was to know that they were over, but for Mother’s sake, I had to figure out how to get over, but what now? Well, we had to keep ourselves calm and wait out the events. After an hour or more, the cop came again. ‘The Gestapo is still in the harbor, so the prospect of sailing tonight is extremely low, if not hopeless.’ ”9
While the twelve refugees were still crammed into the coastal police’s temporary office at the Mission Hotel, and many others in other places in the small town, Gestapo-Juhl and his small team of collaborators raided both the hotel and the inn. They had no luck at either of the sites because they had been evacuated shortly before. But Gilleleje was full of refugees, and had the Germans entered the coastal police’s office right next door, they would have had a great catch. Gestapo-Juhl retreated with his men but left no doubt that he would come back. Nevertheless all the accommodations were put back into use, although it was obvious to everyone that things were completely untenable with so many refugees in the town.
Levysohn is among those being evacuated from the Mission Hotel that same evening:
One lady had a place with some friends where 4 people could stay, and they were allowed to go. Another lady had a place to which she had the key, it was an empty house, with room for 6, and I went with them. We carefully snuck out, with our friend the policeman in the lead. As we approached the main road we had to press ourselves against a wall when 2 cars with Gestapo drove right past. We went on. The lady with the key to the house went in front. The policeman and I were last. In the darkness the policeman and I got separated from the others, and as the officer, who was employed by the coastal police, had only arrived in Gilleleje the day before, he didn’t know his way or where I was supposed to go.
We passed 3 fishermen who stood and talked. The officer approached them and asked if there was one who would take me for the night. It was midnight by now. One of them offered right away. I had to take it as it was. I was happy if I could just lie down for a few hours. He had a small two-room apartment. In one room he slept with his wife and two small children, the second was the living room, where there was a couch. The wife got up and gave me a cup of coffee, and then made up the couch for me. Half-dressed and ready to rapidly respond, I lay on the sofa. There was no thought of sleep of course, since you listened to every step, but just to lie down did me good.10
It is no wonder that both the refugees and the helpers in Gilleleje felt that their number was up. Today we know that to a great extent Gestapo-Juhl constituted an exception to the rule that the German authorities did little to capture the fugitives, and the testimony of the fugitives also reflects a general feeling that the Germans as a rule were not particularly zealous in their manhunt. This is noted on October 5 in the diary of the town doctor in the tiny Swedish coastal town of Höganäs, who was responsible for examining the incoming refugees, and who spoke with some of the first to come in: “They reported that the Danish people did everything to help, and that the German soldiers wanted to see them slip through.”
Unfortunately Gestapo-Juhl was not a German soldier but an active Nazi and Gestapo officer. And he did not want anybody to slip through.
The Mobilization
While the refugees and the helpers tried to cope with the evolving situation in Gilleleje and other coastal cities, the country was still struggling to understand what was happening and to digest the consequences. The legal press and radio were silent on the unfolding human drama, so rumors and hearsay traveled fast, creating confusion. In general the reaction was as expected—and feared—by the Germans, except with no tendency to demonstrations or civil unrest. But the raid against the Jews provoked a new sense of defiance that for many became the crucial nudge in the direction of active resistance. Armed struggle and sabotage were still the acts of a very few, and the majority of the population probably still viewed sabotage with great skepticism, because many feared it would just provoke the Germans and increase the repression. But there is no doubt that the center of gravity in public opinion was shifting, and more and more people felt that the time had come to push back harder.
While hatred of the Germans only grew, many also retained strong reservations about the Communists taking a leading role in the armed resistance. For the same reason the elected politicians still harbored strong reservations in regard to the militant freedom fighters. What were their intentions if the Soviet Union won the war? Even if the Communists had begun to use national slogans hailing the defeat of fascism and the liberation of Denmark, few trusted their patriotic sentiment, and many feared that they were using the fight against the Germans as a springboard for their continued desire for social upheaval and revolution on the Soviet model. The battle lines were sharply drawn, and when the Communist-inspired underground newspaper Free Denmark was released in October with its commentary on the action against the Jews, it was permeated by the underlying struggle for what was now at stake.
Free Denmark first notes that the action against the Jews
, “which today has resonated through all walks of life,” has led to a flood of indignation: “The persecution of the Jews has hit Danes at the tenderest point of their consciousness, even the overly tolerant, the passive, the lukewarm, feel this baseness and they shrink at the thought.…
“The Germans must not think that either the repatriation of soldiers or the pro forma lifting of the state of emergency will dampen the wave of indignation spawned by this outrage. There are those who bitterly claim that ‘if we had just behaved and refrained from sabotage’ or ‘had caved in to the German demands and formed a new government then we would have avoided this blow against the Jews.’ We do not agree with these embittered people: Denmark is a country at war. And we cannot give up this fight, which is about our freedom and our future—we cannot give it up for anything, not even to save a group of countrymen from the terrible fate that 1,600 Danish Jews now have to share.”
Free Denmark takes issue here with the core rationale of the policy of cooperation and with the legitimacy of the claim that it saves many from a worse fate. Not only was the resistance on the offensive against the policy pursued by the elected politicians, it was also out to defend itself against popular accusations that it was the resistance itself that had unleashed the German reprisals against the civilian population: “You might answer that we can easily say that, as we are not Jews ourselves, and not having Jewish lineage—it’s not for us to pay! But saying so ignores the fact that many Danish freedom fighters have already had to suffer harsh penalties, some even death for Denmark’s sake, and that all of us who continue today to lead the fight for freedom from the occupation put our lives on the line every day, thus showing that for us there is no higher calling than the good of the fatherland. It is this that allows us to put Denmark’s struggle for freedom above all else—even more than the individual’s fate, however cruel and unfair it be.”