by Bo Lidegaard
“Before the End of the Year”
On the third day of Heinrich Himmler’s meetings in Poznan, the Third Reich’s third most powerful man addressed a closed group of senior Nazi officials. Again he raised the issue of the extermination of the Jews, explaining how difficult a decision it was also to order the killings of women and children, but that it was necessary if the problem was to be solved once and for all and not leave someone who could or would avenge the killings. “The difficult decision had to be taken to ensure that this people disappear from the face of the earth.” Almost like an ominous comment on the situation in Gilleleje during these very same days, Himmler added: “The Jewish question in the countries we occupy will be resolved before the end of the year. Only traces of random Jews who were able to find hiding places will be left.”
The genocide of the Jews was not a plan that ran amok but a decisive effort by the Nazi leadership. It was a project that was considered vital for Germany’s survival and essential for the Third Reich’s victory. Therefore it was central both politically and administratively. It was a goal that Hitler and his closest aides did not think they could afford to lose sight of—a goal they pursued with ever greater zeal in step with the growing problems at the fronts, and with ever greater vigor as the more or less voluntary allies of the Third Reich became less and less enthusiastic about their role in this barbarous endeavor.
In one crucial point, however, the action in Denmark distinguishes itself clearly from all previous raids and actions against Jews initiated by the Nazis; in Denmark it took place under the eyes of an immensely indignant and protective society, while the Swedish press delivered live coverage, so to speak. This is exactly why the Nazi apparatus failed in this case.
As events unfolded in Denmark, of course no one knew the exact wording of Himmler’s speeches in Poznan. But the men who represented the occupying power were schooled in the mind-set the speaker expressed, and they knew that the extermination of the Jews was to be implemented at all costs. As a very senior SS officer, Werner Best knew this better than anyone else. At the same time Berlin wanted the peaceful occupation of Denmark to continue. The two goals were difficult to reconcile, and the risk was extremely high if it failed. It was not only the Danish Jews’ lives that were at stake. The development could also be fatal for Werner Best and his people. If Berlin got the impression that he opposed the deportation of Denmark’s Jews, he risked reprisals and ultimately even his own life. Conversely, if cooperation with the Danes were at risk, the ground would crumble under him. For Best, there was no alternative to going all out. That is why he told Svenningsen, on the same day that the state of emergency was lifted, that he, Best, would henceforth again be fully responsible for all German interests in Denmark.
So Werner Best was hanging on to the reins as best he could. The first riddle he had to crack was how to accomplish the cleansing of Denmark while stemming the wave of indignation and protest from all parts of Danish society. Perhaps it is true, as Duckwitz later testified, that Best exclaimed that what he needed most was a bridge to Sweden.1
Morning in Gilleleje
Adolph Meyer and the other refugees in Gilleleje also needed a bridge. After a long, strenuous journey on Tuesday, with only a few hours’ sleep in the coastal police officer’s stuffy room, Wednesday began no better. Meyer noted:
I do not remember if I slept a little, it was not nice, and I was not brave. On Wednesday, October 6, at 4 a.m the officer came in and said we had to get up to a nearby farm that was 2.4 kilometers away. We trotted off, did not really know, but felt that the worst was still to come. The farm we came to was called Blaksheide; Mary was placed in the cowshed, I got the son-in-law’s, the Chinese man Wang’s, bed, I lay there, dressed, from around 5 or 6 o’clock for a few hours, we got coffee and bread, and were told to walk 5 to 10 minutes to a neighboring farm, Lysgård.
We were 12, I think, that trudged over, including Ragna and Jespersen. The farmer was not home, and the wife and the people did not dare put us up, after a 10-minute stay in the barn we went back, we did not complain as there was no phone in Lysgård. On the way Mrs. Jespersen suggested that we and she and her son should go to Majorgården in Hellebæk [on the coast farther to the east, closer to Helsingør], where she believed that a crossing could easily take place. We telephoned around 11 o’clock for a car, it did not come.
The experience was consistent. Nothing functioned normally, and the fugitives had difficulty knowing what they could—and could not—count on. At the municipal hospital in Copenhagen, Ella Fischer still had not left either. Several had offered their help, but she chose to rely on Mrs. Sorensen, who lived in the same building as some of her relatives: “During visiting hours Mrs. Sorensen came to me and told me that the previous night police patrol boats from Gilleleje had sailed with 150 people on board. She was certain that my family would be among them, and I felt very relieved.”
This is undoubtedly the echo of the first successful trip from Gilleleje the previous evening, the news having reached Mrs. Sorensen in Copenhagen. The impression was that the coastal police had assisted, which gave the story the twist that it actually was their patrol boat that sailed refugees over. But the rumor was not true. And Ella’s confidence that her family had been carried to Sweden from Gilleleje would prove to be wishful thinking. In fact her father, the Jewish community’s librarian, Josef Fischer, was arrested the same day on the main road between Helsingør and Gilleleje. He was with his wife and two of their daughters, Edith and Harriet. The entire family was deported to Theresienstadt.
However, neither Ella Fischer nor Mrs. Sorensen knew this, so they took an optimistic view: “Mrs. Sorensen thought I could get away the same day and wanted to take me to her home immediately. Then I called Miss Ring and the head nurse and got dressed in a hurry. I did not say good-bye to anyone in the room, except for Mrs. Vitha Jensen, who came in while I was getting dressed. She had been fully aware of the situation and helped me in many small ways. Most of the others in the room did not understand a word of it all and were not aware that I was thinking of escape. I drove in a car with Mrs. Sorensen out to Hellerup. She said that I should squeeze myself completely into the corner of the car and close the curtains completely, so I felt like the worst criminal. Sometime after we got home, Mr. Sorensen came. He was to have met a gentleman concerning my departure on that same day, but that man never came, and although he had received a written message, he didn’t believe that it was advisable to send me off. It was then that I decided I should stay with them that night.”
Two days later, on October 8, Ella Fischer succeeded in getting to Sweden—the only member of her immediate family to do so.2
The general confusion that characterized the escape at the beginning of the week was also fueled by the growing doubts about German intentions. As mentioned above, the prominent lawyer H. H. Bruun was advising members of the Jewish community and also C. L. David, who was half Jewish. As late as Tuesday, Bruun passed along the reassuring messages from Best, which had been given to Svenningsen, in regard to the safety of half Jews. Bruun now sought out Svenningsen personally, and the lawyer’s notes from the conversation leave the impression of a permanent secretary who no longer knew what he dared to believe. But even if Svenningsen was visibly shaken, he still did not seem to have realized fully how unscrupulously the Nazis could behave. Bruun, on the other hand, saw this continued confidence in the German authorities as a major liability—even if he himself to some extent shared it. Svenningsen gave Bruun a clear confirmation of his conversation with Best and of his assurances in regard to half Jews. But at the same time Svenningsen, according to Bruun, “severely weakened the impact of his own assurances,” as the barrister apparently began to press harder for details: “Best had not made promises for the future, but only mentioned the fact that the raid had been aimed at pure Jews.
“Svenningsen said that they would try to obtain approval for the half and quarter Jews, and Jews in Aryan marriages, to be allowed to go legit
imately to Sweden. Svenningsen thought those groups to be without risk, but if they felt insecure, they had to have an option. However, those in question first had to submit a petition to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They wanted to see how many were involved and then refer the matter to the German authorities. I argued that the half and quarter Jews with Danish names … would be reluctant to reveal their Jewish lineage and fear that the documentation would be misused. Svenningsen acknowledged this, but said that people had to weigh those odds themselves. Whether an arrangement could be worked out, he did not know, but it would at any rate only be possible when the petitions were submitted, and it was possible to examine what it was about.”
Bruun was far from convinced, and thought that there was a real danger if half Jews were to register. He headed straight to the Swedish minister, Gustav Dardel, who explained that obtaining legal exit papers for Sweden was difficult. All in all Bruun concluded that it remained safest for David to stay. Although there could well be unpleasantness, the dangers of illegal escape still seemed to outweigh the prospect of safety. But the same day David wrote a letter to Bruun, in which he asks that he make some arrangements if David should choose to flee to Sweden. The letter reflects that David is still undecided, but also that he is moving toward the decision to leave. Thus the letter ends with a PS: “If I choose to go to Sweden and succeed, I think my law firm should be maintained until it is clear whether I can come back again, just as I have hopes in other respects that times will be such that I can resume my activities.”3
The Schooner Flyvbjerg
While Adolph Meyer and his fellow refugees had to move quickly from one hiding place to another near Gilleleje, the situation around Gilleleje’s harbor was coming to a head. It started with an embarrassing episode, which is reflected in a report from Sergeant Mortving of the coastal police. He had already been an involuntary participant the previous day in Gestapo-Juhl’s raid against the cutter Danebrog, just as it was heading out of the harbor with seventeen fleeing Jews. After the gunfire and the arrest of the Jews, the cutter was seized by Gestapo-Juhl and berthed “in the immediate vicinity of the control house,” where the Danish coastal police was housed. But when another boat, the Ingeborg, came into the harbor shortly after 9:00 a.m., the duty officer left his post to check it. Mortving reports with tongue in cheek on further events: “When [the duty officer] came back after approximately 10 minutes, the cutter [the Danebrog] had sailed and was well outside the harbor. The duty officer immediately reported the development to the undersigned [and states] that he did not notice people on board the cutter, and did not hear the cutter’s motor start, but he declared that the cutter sailed under its own power.
“The owner of the boat, fisherman Juhl Richard Svendsen, born 4/7/1906 in Gilleleje … who after Ocotber 5 was wanted by the German police, disappeared from his home on the 6th so it must be assumed that it is he who has sailed with the cutter (probably to Sweden).”
The bone-dry report concludes with a laconic remark in which one can discern a faint undertone of Sergeant Mortving’s quiet triumph: “Criminal Inspector Juhl, who later in the day arrived here on patrol, was notified.”
In other words Gestapo-Juhl was told to his face that the cutter he had arrested the previous day and placed under the control of the Danish coastal police at the harbor had been taken by its owner, who was a wanted man, and sailed off in full daylight right in front of the Danish guards who claimed to have seen and heard nothing—just as they had not the previous days and nights. What Mortving did not feel he had to tell Gestapo-Juhl, and what is not revealed in his report, is that the Danebrog had run aground in the harbor and could not get out on its own. Fisherman Axel Sorensen had to tow him out with his boat, Maagen, and only then could Danebrog leave the port. The fishermen in Gilleleje had every reason to trust that the Danish police were on their—and the refugee helpers’—side, just as Gestapo-Juhl had every reason not to trust his Danish colleagues.4
The influx into the small town was hard to keep a secret. At the butcher’s on Vesterbrogade there were about thirty Jews, and the fishmonger also had a house full of refugees. It was clear that they had to be dealt with as soon as possible—preferably shipped out. Some refugees jumped to conclusions and left Gilleleje with their mission unaccomplished. Among them was Levysohn, who had spent a restless night in the fisherman’s small home: “The hours crept on. At 5 a.m. Wednesday morning the fisherman went down to the harbor to see how things were. He came back to tell me that the Gestapo were still in the harbor, so escape was out of the question. I had to get back to Copenhagen as, in his opinion, it was too risky to be in Gilleleje. The train went at 6:30 a.m. I got a cup of morning coffee, and he followed me down to the little station outside Gilleleje where I got onto the train.… Of those who wanted to escape, there were not many along; most stayed in Gilleleje to wait and see. Whether they subsequently crossed over I have no idea. The mood on the train was somewhat dull and nervous, but the ride was smooth. At one place a lot of German soldiers got on, but those clodhoppers obviously were not dangerous.”5
Back in Gilleleje a visiting helper, assistant professor Mogens Schmidt from Helsingør, cycled down to the harbor early in the morning, where he had spotted a dozen “wind drivers,” many of them large schooners, which were moored one next to the other along the piers. If their sails could be raised it would do the trick. Schmidt made several unsuccessful attempts to get in touch with skippers, and finally made contact with a captain from Fyn, Gunnar Flyvbjerg. He hesitated. He was not the sole owner of the schooner, and would also be putting his brother’s share at risk if he ventured to transport a boatload of Jews. Eventually Schmidt persuaded skipper Flyvbjerg and the two young men who constituted the crew. At the control post on the center pier they got the coastal police officer’s approval of the plan. The sailing was scheduled for 1 p.m., and preparations for the quick departure were made on board the schooner.
The Flyvbjerg could take several hundred refugees, and the message that there was now the possibility of a ship spread by word of mouth among the helpers, who each had knowledge of small groups of refugees hiding in various locations in and around the town. Thus the news also reached Adolph Meyer’s small traveling party, which had just given up trying to obtain a car: “Now, another car came an hour later in a hurry to get us to a crossing, we flew off, and the car would have to return to pick up the young folks who were following us on foot.”
The local helpers wrote multiple contemporary accounts of the ensuing events at the harbor that morning. Although great efforts were made to manage the influx of Jews to the harbor, the situation with so many refugees in the tense atmosphere could not be kept under control. Only a few hours after Gestapo-Juhl had left the port area, men and women, young and old, children and luggage, all flocked down to the center pier where the Flyvbjerg was moored. The helpers were not organized or coordinated, and they all wanted their own groups to reach the boat. The rush was at once a moving and deeply disturbing sight, as Vilhelm Lind, participating in the futile attempts to control the situation, amply described:
The departure was originally intended for 12:30 p.m. but already by 10 o’clock the coastal police gave the ready signal, and because it was important to use the time while the Germans were not around, it was determined that it should sail immediately. At the same time the message was given throughout the town, and scenes there could not be depicted more dramatically in any film. The once so peaceful seaside resort, now sitting there quietly in autumn, with almost empty streets, was suddenly full of life. In a moment all the house doors sprang open and Jews flowed out of almost every house. In an instant the whole main street was full of people, women and men, from the youngest toddlers to gray-haired old men, poor and rich—all on the run from the barbarians. The entire town’s population helped, and all kinds of vehicles were used. Old gouty women were carried by weatherbeaten fishing hands, while others were rolled off by wheelbarrows and other odd transport devices. I found a little gi
rl who seemed to have become separated from her family. I got her up on my bicycle bar and rode at full speed toward the harbor. She cried when I picked her up, but gradually as I was yelling and screaming in Norwegian, pushing myself forward through the crowd on the pier, her fear turned into enthusiasm, and it was a very excited little youngster I delivered on board the ship. It was a strange sight to see all these people on the run along the main street, down toward the harbor, people who had done nothing wrong but whose only sin was to be Jews. They were now being chased away with empty, expressionless, or resigned faces, without understanding a bit of it all. As for myself, having handed over the little one, I swallowed and swallowed and found it hard to hold back the tears, whether it was the joy that everything seemed to go so well, or … the bitterness of having to witness that kind of thing in a Nordic country in the year 1943—or maybe because of both.
The tension was constantly at the breaking point, for the Germans could get there at just any moment. But everything went well until suddenly there was a cry: “The Germans are coming!” and in an instant the moorings were cast off and the schooner sailed toward Sweden and freedom with 210 Jews on board.6
It is impossible to say where the rumor originated, but the cry of the Gestapo’s arrival spread like wildfire and created panic on the center pier. Although it turned out to be a false alarm, the embarkation of several hundred Jews from the port in full daylight put the local Danish authorities in an impossible situation. While they did the best they could to facilitate the operation, they had to assume the worst if it became too obvious to the Gestapo that they were actively assisting in the escape they were supposed to prevent. This dilemma also shines through a short telegraphic report Mortving submitted that same day on the situation at the port up to the Flyvbjerg’s departure. The sergeant is clearly aware that the report will be read not only by his own superiors but also by their German counterparts: “Today at 10:30 a.m. I became aware that there was a large influx of Jews to Flyvbjerg … which lay at the eastern quay in Gilleleje. I set off immediately to prevent the departure, but I was asked by many unknown persons not to prevent departure, as they would otherwise make use of machine guns. The persons referred to were wearing coats, so it could not be ascertained whether or not they were in possession of firearms. As I was alone at the harbor along with one reserve officer and there was no possibility of calling for reinforcements for as large an assembly as around 300–400 people, I let Flyvbjerg depart unimpeded with the Jews at 10:45 a.m. According to the information obtained there were about 230 Jews on board.”